Physician, Heal Thyself
by Nova Fearnewood
Summary: As things start to go wrong at St. Mungo's, the Ministry panics and begs Healers from England to return and reinvigorate the healing arts. Two rivals meet again, but things have changed, and so have they. Hermione is working to escape her personal life, Draco's work IS his personal life, but that's all about to change when they come face to face in the emergency room.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

After the War, the wizarding world is reeling, especially after losing so many people to the violence.

There is a massive need for young witches and wizards to take up new callings, especially in the healing fields, but with St. Mungo's Healing School having been destroyed and most of the professors and professionals murdered by Death Eaters and other Voldemort sympathizers, the task to relearn the healing arts falls unknowingly upon the muggles and their schools.

Changes and challenges arise for many young witches and wizards, and the two brightest students of their year, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger (unbeknownst to each other) both choose to study medicine and healing.

Draco is overcoming his prejudice towards muggles and muggle-born individuals, breaking through his father's conditioning and grooming, and has chosen, with the help of the Order, the Ministry, and even MACUSA, to uproot himself, move to America, and study and practice medicine, hoping that distance and anonymity in a foreign country would be just what was needed for a fresh start, and it was.

Draco started out in New York and was then matched with University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) for his residence, so he moved to Baltimore.

As expected, he sailed through the programs and, in time, became a trauma surgeon at the world-renowned UMMC R. Adams Cowley Shock-Trauma Center in Baltimore; a place unlike any other, where he is at the forefront of non-magical advances in trauma care.

Hermione chose a different path and decided to study at Cambridge and focus on what she feels like is a tribute to her late father's practice; orthopedics (teeth and bones are fairly similar, after all). She is, of course, positively brilliant at it, with or without magic assisting her.

Her life has been significantly different since the war, and she and Ron have been dating for several years now after being on again and off again for a long time. Ron's been the co-owner of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes for years with George, and they've finally hit the point where practically everyone they know is married and has children and it's making Hermione nervous, though she won't admit it.

Molly is hinting at wanting more grandchildren and making thinly veiled attempts at persuading Ron to finally propose to her.

It isn't that Hermione doesn't _want_ to get married, it's the fact that she feels like she's _supposed_ to get married that alarms her.

Witch that she is, Hermione throws herself headlong into her career and tries her best to avoid ruining everyone's expectations of her.

Years pass and St. Mungo's rebuilds, but the healer shortage still takes a heavy toll on patient care and efficiency even a decade after the war, and the Ministry's Health Division is called in to assist.

Jobs are offered to any known witch or wizard with a medical background, especially to those who are from Great Britain.

Hermione jumps at the idea of being a healer and immediately answers the call, and, being the most experienced candidate, she is given the chief position for orthopedics and accepts, giving her the chance to bury herself in the job she loves to avoid her conflicting thoughts about possibly marrying Ron and spending the rest of her life with him.

Draco receives his offer in the form of a letter attached to a Portkey (apparently it's international wizard mail since owls don't do transatlantic flights). After giving it some thought (a lot of thought, actually), he realizes that this muggle world and the city of Baltimore, through all its faults and shortcomings, has grown on him, so he decides to stay.

A letter that speaks the truth is all that's needed to bring him home again.

 **Changing Times**

Draco Lucius Malfoy was standing outside of the ER doors where the ambulances pulled up, taking a rare break from his shift, feeling the all-encompassing chill of Baltimore in mid-January, letting it freeze him to the bone and purify his mind when a tech came over his radio,

"Hey, Malfoy, we've got a chopper inbound from an accident on 70 towards Hagerstown, driver was DOA, passenger is a pregnant woman losing a lot of blood, things are about to get busy in here."

He sighed, his exhalation rising in a puff of condensation as he pulled his long white-blonde hair back up into a ponytail before coiling it atop his head and pulling his surgical cap back on.

"I'll be right in.", he replied, reentering the hospital.

Dr. Draco Malfoy was not a stranger to these things, in fact, he liked to think of himself as being built for this calling.

When he had first arrived in the states in the fall of 1998, he enrolled in a nursing program in New York, deciding that the best way to pay his debt to society was to heal the sick and save the wounded.

It happened just a few short months after the War had ended, his trial and subsequent proven innocence had been expedient, his father had gone to Azkaban where he belonged, his mother had been placed on probation and had somehow reconnected with her sister, Andromeda Tonks, and he had worked out a deal with the Order, the Ministry, and a delegation from MACUSA.

They all agreed that he would be on probation in the United States, far away from anyone who might pull him back to the dark side.

 _"I think Draco Malfoy will be willing and able to do anything to get as far from here as possible and to become a better person… I believe that, whatever he chooses to do with his life, it will be better than anything we could give him here in our community where he is still regarded as a traitor and a pariah, and likely will be for a very long time. This war has taken its toll on all of us, and Draco was only acting out of fear for his life and the lives of his family members. He was forced to join the Death Eaters to punish his father after he failed to bring Voldemort the prophecy… We've all done terrible things out of fear, myself included, I nearly killed him last year…I am not being punished for it because you've decided that I'm the Chosen One, why should Draco be punished for acting out of fear?"_ , Harry Potter, of all people, said at his post-trial meeting with MACUSA officials, members of the Ministry, and senior members of the Order.

Harry had vouched for him and it was he whom Draco had to thank for his life today.

After getting his certifications as an RN and as an EMT (thanks to a time turner), he was put on an ambulance crew and it was there that he found his true calling; trauma medicine.

He realized that the war he had fought in back home had prepared him for his job as a paramedic nurse and that when he had been on the wrong side then, he was finally on the right side now.

The only times he seriously doubted his abilities to work in that field had been before September 11th, 2001.

After that, he was sure of his calling.

He had thought that the worst things he had ever seen and experienced was the evil of Voldemort and the battle at Hogwarts.

He was proven wrong that day.

His crew had been on a call near the financial district concerning a potential jumper, who had been talked down by an officer on the scene before anything could happen, when the news broke about an airplane crashing into one of the Twin Towers.

His first thought had been that it had been a tragic accident concerning a small plane.

He could remember the color draining from his crewmate Sierra's face as their driver, Jake, turned up the radio and they learned it was, in fact, a passenger jet that had collided with the tower.

The next twenty minutes or so was a blur to him, but he remembers being on the ground at WTC when the second plane hit the south tower.

His father's voice came back to him in that moment, _"Muggle filth are capable of more violence and hatred than you could ever know…"_ and his blood had run cold at the terrifying thought that maybe, just maybe, his father had been right.

The next hours were spent assisting in the evacuation of civilians from the area.

He fought back the urge to vomit when he was inside a foyer in the south tower, treating a woman for shock when they heard a sickening smash from the glass high above them, only to look up and see a body, or what remained of it, slumped against the ceiling.

"Oh fuck, they're jumping…", came the shocked voice of Tyrus, one of his crewmates, as the woman he was treating cried out in horror.

The next hours and minutes were a blur.

He didn't care if MACUSA shipped his ass back to Azkaban for it, he was performing all sorts of powerful wandless magic with the help of his adrenaline rush to save as many people as he could, obliviating people before they could say anything about his sudden uncanny abilities.

He remembered the towers falling, running with civilians and first responders alike away from the debris cloud, casting multiple bubble-head charms as he went, trying to prevent as many people as he could from breathing in that all-encompassing dust.

He wasn't alone either. There were a lot of MACUSA employees out there in the streets doing the same things.

He helped rescue a group of men who had been filming a documentary about the financial district when the attacks happened and herded them to safety as best as he could and, unbeknownst to him, he was included in their footage.

His mother had heard of the attacks on muggle news and had actually called him with a telephone at his apartment, leaving multiple messages on his answering machine, begging him to call Andromeda's number when he could because she wasn't leaving her sister's house until she found out he was alive and safe.

He called his mum at the earliest opportunity to tell her he was safe, but that there was a lot of work to be done and that a lot of people were still trapped in the debris.

Narcissa had been crying in relief on the other end of the line, telling him to be safe and that she loved him, something she hadn't said to him in a very long time.

He volunteered and took extra shifts, working around the clock with other paramedics and even MACUSA officials to clear debris and treat survivors. Draco would live off of energy drinks, potions, and power naps for 48 hours and then sleep for a day before going out and doing it all over again.

That same pure blood that his father would have never had him spill for any muggle was donated willingly at a blood drive, the Red Cross worker telling him that he had an awesome tattoo when he saw the Dark Mark on his forearm.

Draco had nearly been ill at the comment, but bit back his sharp response to the unknowing muggle in favor of nodding a silent "thank you" instead.

Draco squashed those memories out of his head as he scrubbed in, coming back to his reality.

It was January of 2010, nearly twelve years had passed since the battle at Hogwarts, almost nine since 9/11. He had been fortunate enough to breeze through his residencies and fellowships and here he was, a new man, at the forefront of critical care.

He was a surgeon at UMMC Shock-Trauma and he was about to try and save two lives at once; a mother and her unborn child.

Nothing could wipe away his sins as a participant in Voldemort's crusade for power, no matter how young, scared, and stupid he had been.

He had grown since then, learned about muggles, and had even come to respect them. His life's work was to serve others and save as many lives as he could, full stop.

He pulled on his gloves and backed into the OR as the message went out that the helicopter, or MedEvacs as they were called in Maryland, had landed on the helicopter pad, preparing his team for whatever came into their trauma bay.

As he worked, he kept thinking of the offer he had received two weeks prior to come back to Britain and become a healer at St. Mungo's.

Would he give up this life here for an invitation and opportunity to rejoin the magical community back in England?

He had decided against it.

He belonged here.

That was that.

The victim was rushed in and Draco sprang into action, barking orders as his nurses and techs as they worked seamlessly around him.

"Riley! Get on the phone for Cezerek, tell her we need her ASAP!", he shouted to a tech as he evaluated the positioning of the unborn child in the mother's womb and heard the failing heartbeats of the child before deciding he needed someone more experienced on this to save this child's life.

That was something the old Draco would have never done, admit he needed help.

Hours later, he practically collapsed on his sofa in his Fells Point townhouse, having shed his pink scrubs and showered.

It had been a long shift and he was feeling it in his bones.

After trying to block out his cases from his mind, including the one unfortunate case when he couldn't save the pregnant woman who was involved in a deadly car accident, he was about to fall asleep.

Luckily, he could rest easy knowing the child had been saved. He had been able to assist Dr. Cezerek, their OB-GYN on call, in an emergency C-section and the child had been delivered prematurely, but still alive and in excellent health considering the circumstances.

The baby would spend several weeks in the NICU before going home with the mother's parents.

As much as he loved how exhilarating each shift was, how he was repaying his debt to society one life at a time, he did miss home and his mother.

He was seconds from sleep when there was a pop and a loud clunk on his dining room table.

Draco jumped up and looked at the place where the noise had come from, his wand drawn in anticipation.

Lying on his table was a small garden trowel with parchment rolled around its handle and fastened with heavy duty twine.

He summoned the trowel to his hand and pulled the twine off, unfurling the parchment as he sank back down onto the sofa.

It was a letter from Neville Longbottom of all people.

Draco hadn't seen the Gryffindor since his trial, where he had testified as a witness for his defense, telling the Wizengamot that he had assisted in the final battle against Voldemort by throwing Harry's wand to him and helping maintain the protective enchantments around the Great Hall.

He had no idea how Neville got his address, but he guessed that Theodore Nott had something to do with that.

When Draco decided to give in and get a Facebook account, one of his first friends aside from former classmates from nursing and med school and colleagues from his time as a paramedic nurse, had been, to his surprise, Theodore Nott.

Theo was still single, and doing well for himself despite his choice of using his family fortune to pay reparations to the people who had lost their homes and businesses to the war.

Theo had filled Draco in on what was going on in the magical community, mainly who married who, who was expecting children, the new professors that Hogwarts hired on, Quidditch, things like that.

He learned that Neville Longbottom had married Luna Lovegood and that they both taught at Hogwarts now, Neville as the Herbology professor, Luna as the Charms professor. Apparently, Sprout had retired after training Neville for five years. He had expressed a desire to stay and teach, so she passed the torch to him and had gone to live with her daughter and her grandchildren in Wales.

Flitwick was still a member of the Hogwarts staff, although he had retired from teaching Charms, he stayed on as assistant headmaster, head of Ravenclaw house, and choir director.

It just so happened that he was getting a letter from professors Lovegood and Longbottom about the healer shortage and how it was starting to take its toll in the form of malpractice cases involving healers that were far too old to still be working but refused to retire.

The letter was written in neat script with some dirt smudges here and there, and it was a plea for help.

Draco sat as he read the letter, his anger growing with every word.

According to the letter, Luna had been expecting their first child when a seemingly normal spell to check early fetal development was horribly bungled by an absolute fossil of a medi-wizard, resulting in a miscarriage.

Luckily, Luna hadn't been left completely barren by the spell, as that particular spell had been known to sterilize witches before and was actually the preferred method of permanent sterilization over a tubal ligation or hysterectomy.

Apparently, this hadn't been the first time something like this had happened at St. Mungo's either, although those incidents hadn't been brought up in the official letter from the Ministry's Health Division which had implored him to return to the British magical community as a healer.

It didn't surprise him that the Ministry would lie about something like that, but it did enrage him.

Neville went on in his letter, detailing many more cases of malpractice in all the departments at the hospital, from vanished bones and the need for Skele-Gro, to denial of pain management for muggle-borns, to botched therapy sessions with war survivors.

Frantic witches and wizards had been turning to muggle medicine and the magical healing arts were beginning to be lost as the number of witches and wizards who were turning away from healing magic grew. There were also drops in the birth rates, magical individuals choosing not to have children at all due to the high number of malpractice cases.

Draco couldn't blame them. They had been given a choice between muggle medicine, which they knew came with pain, or elderly, often racist and blood supremacist healers who were making grave mistakes in their practices, so they had withdrawn from the choice altogether.

Before he had thought to become a nursing student himself, he had been raised to think that muggle doctors were psychotic people who would cut people open for fun and hurt them instead of healing them… this incorrect assumption was very common among magical families, pure blood and half-blood alike (apparently once witches and wizards got a taste for medical magic, they tended to stick to it).

While it was true that sometimes magical healing hurt less, it was also true that a good amount of modern medicine was more effective. In healing magic, there was a spell for helping to stop hemorrhage, but he had learned from experience that the fastest way to stop the bleed in an emergency was by applying pressure and a tourniquet.

Before Draco could fully comprehend his actions, he was sitting down at his computer (yes, a computer, if his father had seen him now, he would've likely shit bricks) and typing a letter to send back to the greenhouses at Hogwarts with the trowel, hoping that Neville would intercept the message.

 _Neville and Luna,_

 _I got your letter detailing the situation with St. Mungo's. I am sorry to hear about the miscarriage and I send my prayers for both of you as well as my condolences. I have already been notified by the Ministry's Health Division of the shortage in healers, but I am not a healer, I am a doctor. I have seen the best of both worlds and there is only one way I will operate if I should return; with a hybrid of muggle medical arts and traditional magical healing._

 _Which makes me wonder, how in Merlin's name did you two find out I was a doctor?_

 _I'll see what research I can do with my connections at MACUSA (I suppose that's how you found out about it, those damn Yankees can't keep their mouths shut about anything, can they?) and I'll seriously consider the choice to come back, although I don't know who would trust a former Death Eater to heal them..._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Draco L. Malfoy, MD, FACS, FCCM_

He printed the letter, sent it back with the portkey, and hoped for the best.

He received his response a week later, attached to a portkey, this time clunking down in the middle of his bathroom floor while he was taking a shower.

After nearly giving him a heart attack and making him yelp in a very undignified way, he approached the portkey and the parchment roll.

 _Draco,_

 _Nice titles. Hogwarts has had internet access for a few years now, it's just become such a large part of life in muggle England that it's getting harder and harder to function without it. I must say that technology is extremely helpful, especially for muggle-born students to keep in touch with their families without raising suspicion, we do have tech charms and safeguards in place to keep students from sharing our whereabouts or posting to social media accounts about the school. We would have emailed you, we just couldn't find a current email address other than the one for your job, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered with the portkey._

 _Actually, Luna came across a documentary about 9/11 that they were streaming online over here last September in remembrance of the attacks, and you were in it. The whole student body saw it in their Muggle Studies classes (which are mandatory now). At the end, it said you were a doctor at a trauma hospital in Maryland. Luna googled it, and you came up on a list of doctors affiliated with the hospital. It was fairly easy to direct the portkey to you after that, remember, Luna is the charms professor, after all._

 _Thank you for expressing your condolences._

 _I think you'd be surprised at who would be treated by a former Death Eater. At this point, anything is better than those racist, barmy, positively ancient codgers over at Mungo's._

 _The ministry is cleaning house over there and I have it on good authority that the pay is great if you can become the head of a department, with your experience and certifications, it should be no problem, even if you didn't sit your N.E.W.T.s._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Professor Neville F. Longbottom, Order of Merlin, First Class, Order of the Phoenix_

 _Professor Luna E. Lovegood, Order of Merlin, Second Class, Order of the Phoenix, Quibbler Editor-in-Chief_

 _PS: We've got fancy titles too!_

 _PPS: Just email us next time: profneville04 and looneynargle_

Draco just emailed them next time.

 _Alright, I've considered this position and consulted with my MACUSA connections, turns out that I am able to travel back to the UK if I want to, since I have dual citizenship in both the UK and the US. I'll see what I can do about tying up loose ends here and seeing about a replacement for my position on the go team here at Shock-Trauma. Chances are, once word spreads that I'm leaving for England, I'll get inundated with resumes and other surgeons trying to kiss my ass to get a better recommendation. Too bad for them, I already have my replacement figured out._

 _Draco_

It was a day after he sent that email that a portkey from the Ministry arrived with the application as well as an email address.

Apparently, everyone was getting on board with the new technology.

If his father weren't in Azkaban, he would have had a stroke seeing all of this. As sick as that thought was, it brought a smirk to Draco's face.

In the next two months, he was formally tendering his resignation, having trained a new surgeon, Dr. Selena Rodriguez, a brilliant witch who had had years of experience as a critical care surgeon in the military and could handle the workload, having spent a lot of time in Afghanistan pulling shrapnel and such out of injured soldiers before she herself had been shot, losing some nerve feeling in her left leg and had been honorably discharged with the Purple Heart. He could trust her to keep things running.

Narcissa had been calling him excitedly since hearing the news of his return and then receiving boxes of his possessions by way of FedEx as he began the process of moving, telling him all the latest news from wizarding London.

On his last shift at Shock-Trauma, his colleagues had thrown him a farewell party, gave him a card that made him almost cry, and then had the party ended abruptly with someone driving by and throwing a victim with a GSW to the chest on the ground outside of the facility.

As Draco went home to his nearly empty townhouse, he took the time to wash and carefully fold his white doctor's coat and the pale pink scrubs with STC embroidered on the pockets, packing them into his suitcase.

He ordered takeout from his favorite Indian place down the street, and spent the rest of the night shrinking his remaining possessions down and packing them in one of his suitcases, disguising them as elaborate doll furniture.

He went down to his garage and carefully removed the gasoline from his car and motorcycle before shrinking them, putting them in stasis, and packing them with his other furniture. He packed his other suitcase with his remaining clothes and items from the house, and then decided to get some sleep.

Draco sighed as he pointed his wand at the blanket he had taken out of his carry on and transfigured it into a bed.

He would depart early in the morning for BWI, board a plane, and arrive at London's Heathrow airport that evening.

As he fell into an uneasy sleep, he wondered if he had made the right choice in returning to England. Would the wizarding community be open to a hybrid of magical healing and modern medicine? Would they accept him as being a reformed citizen? Would he have to work with the members of families that had known him during those years of war, those who knew people who had been killed, raped, and brutalized by the Death Eaters and snatchers?

Draco willed himself to sleep and sent a prayer to whatever higher power was out there that he hadn't made the wrong choice.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you all for reading and following this story!

* * *

"Alright, you should be good to go!", Hermione smiled and patted the brace she had just put on the leg of a small muggle girl.

The girl smiled at the prospect of not having to walk with crutches anymore, now that her leg was healed up enough to walk on it.

The girl's mum smiled and said to the girl, "Now what do we say to Dr. Granger?"

"Thank you!", the girl exclaimed.

"You're very welcome, Ellie.", Hermione replied as she walked them out of the exam room, letting Ellie choose a sticker from the box she kept by the front desk, her reward for getting her cast off after six weeks.

The secretary reminded them to follow up with her in a month to see how well the bones were healing and to keep up the good work with physical therapy.

Hermione's office manager, Liza Hartley, announced the end of the work day after Ellie and her mother departed their office.

Hermione Jean Granger sighed, and hung her white lab coat up on the hook near the door.

"We've had a good day…but I am delighted to go home!", Liza exclaimed, standing and stretching before pulling out her wand and tapping it twice against the stack of files on her desk.

The files floated back onto the shelves, arranging themselves appropriately.

Another stack materialized on the desk, they would be Liza's work for the next day.

"Well, I have to go home… busy day tomorrow.", Hermione said as she waved her wand and the waiting room straightened itself up.

The radiology tech, Ian Williams, was waving his wand as well, straightening up the X-ray rooms and the exam rooms.

"Ah yes, you'll be in surgery tomorrow and I'll be seconded to the clinic… fun times…", he stated, summoning his coat to himself, the two women following suit.

"And I'll get some peace and quiet to work on the filing and scheduling. Maybe I'll clean the place from top to bottom, get it really clean!", Liza mused.

"We'd be lost without you, Liza.", came the reply of Hermione's PA, Josh Upland, as he waved his wand and the trash removed itself from the cans and vanished into thin air, "I'll be watching the kids tomorrow."

"It's nice that you're a part time stay at home dad…", Liza said, "Wish my husband would do that every now and again, just until all of the children are old enough to go to school… daycare costs a fortune…"

"Sometimes, I swear Hermione and I are the lucky ones…we aren't tied down like you lot.", Ian commented.

"Not yet.", Liza winked at Hermione, "We all know that Ron'll come around soon enough and then it'll be her turn to get 'tied down'."

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Ian barked out a laugh as they left the practice.

"It'll be a cold day in Hell when he proposes. I think I might be married before Weasley comes to his senses…"

"They haven't legalized gay marriage yet, you know!", Josh said.

"Well, parliament hasn't got anything to do with a good old-fashioned magical handfasting, you know, and for your information, I happen to have a hot date tonight with a nice young man from the department of magical law enforcement…I'd like to see some fogey old Wizengamot official keep me from marrying someone I love!", Ian said, "Well, I'm off, I'll see you lot later.", he announced before apparating away.

Josh was next to go, then it was just Liza and Hermione.

"I kind of wish you wouldn't joke about that.", Hermione said lowly as they walked to their cars.

"You not being married? I'm sorry, 'Mione…", Liza sighed, "I know what you told me, but Ian is a horrible gossip and Josh tells Aubrey everything, and you know how she gets with her book club after they've had some Firewhiskey."

Hermione nodded.

Aubrey Upland could be a real gossip factory once she had a few.

"I know, I know…It's just been _ages_ since the War though, I just wish the Golden Trio thing would die already.", Hermione shook her head, "Not every little thing I do has to be made into front page news… you remember how much Rita Skeeter had a field day when I opened up a practice in muggle London instead of going straight to Mungo's?"

"I remember. But I have to admit that it was good for publicity because you're one of the only doctors I know who also treats a lot of witches and wizards as well. That deathly hallows symbol on your cards is a real attractor for magical folk."

"You're right about that. St. Mungo's has been going downhill for a while… did you know I was offered to be the head of the orthopedics department there?", Hermione said.

Liza nodded fervently.

"I still think you should take it… heading the whole department will be a great way to keep so busy that Ron won't even think about proposing…", Liza replied.

"I know. That's why I think I'll do it…", Hermione said, leaning against her old ruby colored Volvo station wagon.

"Really? You'll give up the practice here?"

Hermione laughed.

"Merlin, no… I'm going to do both. I've already signed on with St. Mungo's as their chief of orthopedics. I'll charm my sign the same way the Leaky Cauldron charmed theirs, so that magical people can see it but muggles can't. I'll change my office hours here and maybe back off of the muggle surgery, somewhat, I just know that I'll have to fight with wizards and witches to get them to have surgery instead… We all know that potions and spells can maintain certain joints for a limited period of time, but that a replacement works better in the long term, especially since I'm trying to come up with a hybrid procedure that combines surgery with magic."

"More power to you… but I hear things are pretty bad at St. Mungo's…"

"I know… you remember meeting Luna and Neville at my birthday party last year? Well, Luna was pregnant and some senile healer botched a spell and caused her to miscarry."

"God, that's horrific…", Liza said, shaking her head.

"I'm just hoping I can get people trusting healers again and get them to start trusting doctors."

"And I'm hoping that you can work up the guts to break up with Ron permanently. Molly is a nice woman and all, but she can't keep dropping hints about wanting more grandchildren if you don't want to marry Ron and have his kids…War heroine or not, you won't be truly happy until you live life for yourself, not for other people's expectations of you.", Liza said with a note of finality in her voice, "You cannot keep running away from your conflicts, ignoring them, and still expecting them to resolve in a way that favors you, and that's all I'm going to say about that."

Hermione nodded and opened her car door.

"I'll take that into consideration, thank you, Liza."

"No problem, boss lady.", Liza said with a nod.

Hermione drove home in silence.

It wasn't that she didn't want to get married or have children someday, it was the fact that she felt as though she was expected to get married to Ron Weasley and have his children that made her want to bury her head in the sand.

She and Ron had been off and on again for the past twelve years, and it was really starting to get annoying, especially during their off times.

Molly Weasley would send her a strongly worded letter about how she was wrong for leading Ron on or some other bullshit like that, how hurt he was that she had left him (most often, it was him leaving her, although she had left a couple of times), and then it would be a heartfelt letter from Ron, begging her to come back (now it was always him who asked for her back, however, whether he had been the one to call it quits that time or not).

She couldn't fathom the level of pity she would have to sink to in order to take him back. She would be getting along just fine without him and then he'd give her those stupid pouty, puppy dog eyes, and she'd melt.

Did she love Ron?

Yes. She loved him. She had loved him since their sixth year. Even when he had left her and Harry to be on the run by themselves, she had been pissed, but still, some small part of her had loved him and had understood why he left.

Did she want to spend the rest of her life with him and have his children?

No, she didn't think so.

She wasn't sixteen anymore. She had grown into being her own woman, and her wants and needs had changed as well.

When she and Ron were together and they were acting as friends, it was fun and she was happy, but when they were acting as lovers was when things got rough and confusing.

She just didn't want to hurt anyone or let them down by not living up to expectations.

She unlocked the door to her flat and went inside, glad that it was silent and that Ron didn't live with her.

Crookshanks wound himself around her feet and she bent down to give him a good scratch behind his ears as he purred at her.

Yes, she was far better off by herself.

She kept this thought in her head as she changed out of her work clothes and put them in the laundry before pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a baggy tee shirt. She cooked dinner and started reading a book that she had bought from Flourish & Blotts the other day. She continued reading it throughout the evening, even charming it to levitate and turn the pages when she soaked in her bathtub.

She hummed and pulled on her pajamas after the bath and exited her bathroom to jump in surprise when Ron wrapped her in his arms and kissed her soundly. Her book fell to the floor as her concentration on the charm failed.

"I missed you today, 'Mione…", Ron said, "Sorry I startled you."

"What are you doing here?", she asked, flustered.

Ron chuckled.

"Can't a bloke visit his girlfriend?"

"Well, yes, I suppose, but I was about to go to bed…", Hermione said, jabbing her thumb in the direction of her bedroom door.

"Well, if you're offering, who am I to refuse?", Ron said with a grin and shrugged, lifting her into his arms and carrying her to her bedroom, kissing her neck as she giggled and tried to get free.

"Ron, no…not tonight…"

"Aw, why not?", he said, feigning hurt, but putting her down anyway.

At least he knew when to stop.

"I have surgery tomorrow. I need to sleep so that I can focus on my patients.", she said, "Every Tuesday and Thursday, I'm in surgery, you know that."

Ron shrugged.

"Didn't think it'd interfere with our love life this much, but okay, if you say so…Perhaps some other night, yeah?"

"Sounds good.", Hermione replied, not too keen on following through with that promise.

Ron placed a kiss on her cheek and said goodnight before apparating away.

Hermione sagged against the wall before ambling into her bedroom, summoning her book as she went. She collapsed onto her bed and groaned.

Ron was an enthusiastic lover, sure, but every time they slept together, it left her feeling unfulfilled, although she couldn't really compare the experience to anything else…Ron had been her first and only sexual partner.

Yes. She decided right then and there that she was going to take that position at St. Mungo's, even if it stressed her to the brink of insanity, anything was better than Ron's erratic thrusting and his sloppy kisses.

Surely sex had to be more fulfilling than that.

She wasn't asexual, she still had needs, but there _had_ to be someone out there who could fulfill them better than Ronald Weasley.

Merlin, she hoped he wasn't as good as it got, otherwise all of those erotic novel writers were some bloody liars.

Crookshanks jumped up onto her bed and curled up by her side as she placed her book on the bedside table and waved her wand, her scrubs for tomorrow floating out of her wardrobe and arranging themselves on the stool of her vanity.

"Nox", she said, and the lights went out.

She didn't sleep very well, her dreams were plagued with her in an absolutely ugly wedding dress, being overrun with freckle faced, red haired children, all shouting "MUM!" and Ron being nowhere to be found, only his voice saying things like, _"Aren't you glad you gave up your career for this?"_ and then Molly Weasley appeared at the forefront of her mind. _"Can you imagine a more fulfilling purpose in life than having children?"_ she said, smiling and nodding to the front of Hermione's dress, which was stretched tight over her pregnant body.

Hermione screamed then and she jolted awake with a yelp, soaked in sweat.

It was horrible.

She cried then, not wanting to give up the only relationship she had ever had as an adult, knowing that most other wizards didn't want to be with the golden girl, the war heroine, because she was "Ron's girl", even if they never said it directly to her.

They didn't want to get on Ron's bad side and then have Harry Potter, the Chosen One, responding to negatively to their advances, because Harry's words still had the power to help and hurt people's reputations.

Yes. She would have to find that Gryffindor bravery and dig it out, dust it off, and tell Ron exactly how she was feeling in this relationship, and then hope and pray that the media wouldn't blow it out of proportions and then have it negatively impact her work in bringing hybrid healthcare to the wizarding world.

She groaned and Crookshanks flicked his tail at her.

"I know…I know…It won't do me any good to get this worked up over it.", she murmured, scratching the big ginger cat behind his ears before reaching over and pulling a bottle of Dreamless Sleep potion out of her bedside table drawer and measuring out a small dose of it.

She fell back asleep and didn't wake up until her alarm clock rang.

* * *

"Draco, dear!", Narcissa Malfoy called out and waved as she caught sight of her son entering the international arrivals terminal.

"Mum!", he called out, his face cracking into a wide grin as he rushed to embrace her.

"I missed you so much!", Narcissa exclaimed as she pressed a kiss to his cheek before holding him at arm's length from her, taking in the man that her son had grown into.

She had missed seeing him, and had to admit that he looked like his father, but with some marked differences. Draco's grey eyes smiled at her and held a glow that she hadn't seen since he was young, and his face fell into a natural smile much easier than his father's face ever had.

"I missed you too, mum.", Draco said, his voice punctuated by his strange accent.

"Your accent changed…", his mother stated casually as they walked out of the airport.

"Yeah, too much time in Baltimore, I suppose, but that's to be expected…"

"You didn't bring any American traditions or customs with you, did you?", Narcissa teased as they walked over to the parking garages.

"American football is a pretty great sport…I've been to a few Ravens games… I also discovered something truly delicious: steamed crabs and the wonders of Old Bay seasoning…"

Draco went on enthusiastically, telling her how much he had enjoyed learning how to cook and drive and that the music was so much better than the type of music they played on wizard radio.

"I must admit, I will miss being in Maryland. England is great and all, and I definitely missed it here, but the weather is so much nicer over there. The sun actually comes out almost every day…"

"Ah, I knew I spotted a slight tan.", Narcissa said as they got into her Land Rover.

"Mum, you learned how to drive?", Draco asked, "Is this your car?"

"Yes. Andromeda made me learn how to drive, and I have to admit that I enjoy it, so much more than brooms and self-pulling or Thestral-drawn carriages…"

"If father saw you now…", Draco said with a smirk as his mother pulled on a pair of dragon skin driving gloves.

Narcissa rolled her eyes.

"I think he'd bemoan my choice to cut my hair…claim that it wasn't very stylish, but I disagree wholeheartedly. I rather enjoy this pixie style haircut, it is far easier to maintain."

"Oh, if he learned what I've done in the past twelve years, he'd probably spontaneously combust."

"Indeed, he would. Speaking of your father, the Ministry has done away with the dementors at Azkaban."

Draco nodded.

It was about time they did away with those creatures.

"They decided that it was cruel and unusual punishment and that the prisoners should be treated as criminals, but not subjected to torture. Prison reform has been a hot topic here for the past few years, spearheaded by Susan Bones, no less. I'm glad she's following in her aunt's footsteps. She's engineered new spellwork to prevent the use of magic on the premises and has also turned most of Azkaban into a modern prison. It's still on an island in the middle of the sea, still looks the same from the outside, but the inmates are getting counseling, therapy, and healthcare… they've even encouraged some of the inmates to write apology letters to their families.", Narcissa said as they drove through the city to Holland Park, where Draco would be living.

"The mews are just wonderful. I'm so glad you're living here… as opposed to the manor…", Narcissa said as they parked.

"What's wrong with the manor?", Draco asked as he got his belongings from the back of the vehicle.

"I haven't been back there since 1999.", Narcissa admitted, "I moved out and into one of the smaller estates… I live with Andromeda and Teddy now… It works out quite well for all of us. Teddy has his friends around for the most part, he's got space to practice his quidditch, and he's away at Hogwarts for most of the year, so it's mostly just Andromeda and I…"

"So, the manor is empty?", Draco asked as they entered his house and closed the door.

"You understand that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it after what went on there…", Narcissa said as she wrung her hands and rubbed the toe of her boot on the floor, "I cleaned out your rooms before I left, of course… and along with putting your boxes in here already, I took the liberty of charming the closet in the spare room to be your storage area, put an expansion charm on it so everything would fit... I doubt you'll want most of those things out...you're not fourteen anymore…"

Draco smiled sadly at his mother.

"It's fine, mum. I'm not upset that the manor is empty. I'm glad you were able to move on and I'm happy that you kept my stuff for so long, especially since you didn't even know if I'd ever come back to England."

"I had faith that someday you would return."

"Well, here I am…Come on, I need your input on where everything should go, you always had an eye for interior design…", Draco said, pulling out his wand and motioning for his mother to do the same.

They worked well into the night with unpacking and moving things into their proper places, ordering food when they got hungry.

Draco caught her up on how his years in America had been.

"So, you didn't date at all?", Narcissa asked.

Draco laughed.

"Oh, I dated, I just didn't do it often or make a habit out of it, that's all. I didn't meet anyone I really liked enough to consider being in a serious relationship with, and they were always witches that I met at MACUSA events… Not that I hung on dearly to father's pure-blood ideals or anything, I was just too busy to really go to many muggle bars and nightclubs, that's all. When I wasn't at work, I was asleep or going to the gym, and when I was on vacation, I liked to be alone, just me, nature, and a good book."

"Not to nag, but most of your classmates are married and have children now…", Narcissa said with a smirk, "I'm not trying to get you to settle down right away or at all if you don't want to, but I loved being around to watch Teddy grow up, so I really wouldn't mind it at all if I became a grandmother someday…"

Draco nodded.

"I'll keep that in mind. First, I have to get into my new line of work. I have this week to settle in. Luckily, the GMC has been in close contact with my supervisors at Shock-Trauma since I announced that I was leaving, the fact that I was a resident at Johns Hopkins is nothing to sneeze at either, and they'll work with me during my recertification process. Apparently, St. Mungo's is willing to take me on as a surgeon whether I'm certified to practice here or not, which is probably how they got to the state they're in…"

Narcissa watched, observing her son as he talked at length about the type of healing arts he'd like to practice. He explained how a hybridization of muggle medicine and healing magic was really the most idea way to practice because magic could offer non-addictive methods of pain management while some muggle practices were better suited for detecting diseases and other health problems.

"…you see, you can only take potions so many times before your body becomes accustomed to them, so really, a heart valve replacement could greatly extend the lifespan of a patient and the recovery time could be halved through the use of magic."

Narcissa decided to spend the night at Draco's apartment, and neither of them slept that night; he was still on American time and she was so excited to have her son home again that they talked all night long.

The sun crept up in the east and they had breakfast before Narcissa announced that she should get home.

"Alright, then. I'll probably apparate over there for dinner, if that's okay with you and Andromeda. I assume Teddy is back at Hogwarts now?"

Narcissa nodded.

"I must warn you, however, that your Aunt Andromeda looks a lot like Bellatrix… The resemblance is uncanny, but she is nothing like our sister, she's very nice and actually dresses in colors other than black.", she said, smirking a bit at the end.

"I'll keep that in mind.", Draco replied, kissing his mum on the cheek and waving at her as she departed.

He sighed as he reentered his home.

Everything was where it should be, but he wanted to set up his office space as a place where he could do potions work, and he no longer had most of his magical items, such as a cauldron or potions ingredients, so he would have to go to Diagon Alley.

The thought of going there made him shudder.

What would people do when they saw him walking around free?

He remembered being escorted out of his trial after the verdict had been passed that he was technically innocent and would not be sent to Azkaban for his complacency during the War.

There had been throngs of witches and wizards booing and jeering at him, yelling that he should burn in Hell, demanding that he receive the Kiss for his involvement.

He hoped that things had died down since then.

Squaring his shoulders, he tied his hair back in a low ponytail, pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a grey button-down shirt with a wool coat and a scarf before pulling on a pair of boots and apparating to the Leaky Cauldron.

He kept his eyes down as he walked to the Diagon Alley entrance, tapping the bricks to get in, and striding through the archway when it appeared.

He went right to Gringotts, doing his best to avoid detection, with no such luck. He was recognized almost immediately, could hear his name being whispered in the crowds, but he kept his head down and he ignored the gasps and hard stares of the other patrons as he entered the bank and went up to the goblin in charge, presenting his wand.

"I'd like to make a withdrawal, please.", he said, offering a slight smile to the goblin.

"Welcome back, Mister Malfoy…", the goblin sneered rather loudly, causing a cacophony of whispers to rush through the place.

He'd make the evening edition of the Daily Prophet at this rate.

"It's actually Doctor now…", he quipped back, as he glanced to the slack-jawed crowd of witches and wizards.

Once his withdrawal was completed, he departed Gringotts and went right to the nearest apothecary.

This time, he didn't attempt to hide his identity or keep his head down. He squared his shoulders and held his head high as he walked down the main alley.

As expected, a flash bulb went off in his peripherals.

He didn't even flinch.

He had heard gunshots all the time in Baltimore. He had survived 9/11. Hell, he even watched Voldemort's great ugly snake eat people.

There was little that they could do to faze him now.

He bought his supplies, bought a barn owl, and went to Flourish & Blotts, just to renew his subscription to the Daily Prophet and purchase some stationary.

If he was going to get back to living in the magical community, he might as well go all in.

His last stop was to Madam Malkin's.

This was the shit that would have people talking for days.

"I'd like to purchase Healer robes.", he said with a smile.

The visibly shaken seamstress behind the counter gulped and spoke, "The standard lime green and white?"

Draco shook his head.

If he was going to create a stir and change the magical community, he might as well go all in.

"I was thinking more along the lines of this…", he said, transfiguring his clothes into a perfect match of his Shock-Trauma scrubs, "The pale pink is an absolute must."

Another flash bulb went off.

With a wave of his wand, he was back in his normal clothes.

"I'll also take the standard lime green and white."

"But the full uniform in pink?", asked the witch.

"Yes. I'll choose the embroidery while I'm here. _'Dr. D_ _. Malfoy, MD'_ , in black on the left chest for the white and green, navy blue for the pink. I'll also need the white boots."

"Will that be all?"

"Yes."

After getting measured for the robes, he left the store and waved to the crowd that had amassed there and apparated back to his house.

He named his owl Elise and set her free from his bedroom window before deciding that he needed groceries.

He went to his garage, brought his motorcycle and car back to their full sizes, replaced the gasoline, transfigured his Maryland tags to British ones, and drove off in his car.

His mother still had a taste for the finer things in life, so she had gone with a Land Rover, but he preferred something humbler than all that, so he had gone with a Subaru Forester instead. He had splurged on his motorcycle a bit.

It was a custom 2006 Honda Shadow Aero and he loved it. It had all the thrill of a racing broom but none of the magic, and that was just fine by him.

In America, MACUSA had strict laws concerning broom usage, so his motorcycle had been a way to work around that rule and still get the adrenaline rush he got whenever he was on a broom.

He walked around the local grocery store and bought what he needed before heading home again, just in time for an owl from St. Mungo's to deliver a letter to him.

 _Dr. Malfoy,_

 _I am delighted to hear you have arrived in one piece and I am so glad that you have taken the position we offered to you as a Healer for general medicine. However, we have reviewed your letters concerning a hybrid practice and you are not the only Healer we are bringing onboard that has expressed this desire to cross muggle medicine with the healing arts. Therefore, the board has decided that you will be the chief of critical care medicine. You will work with all departments, oversee the trainings of many Healers and medi-witches and medi-wizards, or nurses, as you call them in muggle practices, see to it that the candidates hold care to the highest standards, and routinely do rotations in general and specialty surgery._

 _Many of our new Healers were trained as doctors, nurses, surgeons, and imaging technicians. It is your responsibility, as well as the responsibility of those on your team, to see that the changes made to our medical community will be to the benefit of all who rely on us. It is time for us to move into a new era in care and to regain the trust of the magical community._

 _Your team is still being formed, but you will have members from all areas of medicine as well as a senior potion's master and a senior spell engineer. Remember, there is no leader of this team, and that was done on purpose, you are all contributing something different to this new era, everyone will bring something new to the table._

 _I know we agreed to meet in one week, but news travels fast and we just secured our chief of orthopedics, so our team is now complete._

 _We'll be meeting tomorrow at the main hospital at nine o'clock, just ask the receptionist to point you in the direction of the board meeting._

 _Hoping you are well,_

 _Frederick Norrington, Healer_

 _St. Mungo's Hospital Chief of Staff & Public Relations_

Draco nodded and placed the letter on his desk.

This Norrington bloke seemed to have it all figured out.

To Draco's chagrin, he didn't make the evening edition of the Daily Prophet, but he had a sinking feeling that he would be making the morning edition.

* * *

After a long day of surgery, Hermione went home, showered, ate, and fell into her bed.

She rolled over and lazily summoned her mail to her in bed, ripping open a letter from Frederick Norrington, the chief of staff over at Mungo's.

Apparently, he wanted to hold a meeting tomorrow at nine o'clock. He had finally secured his chief of critical care, so it was time to get on track and usher in a new era of medicine, or something like that.

Hermione was excited, but she sent a quick text message to her office team, letting them know that she wouldn't be in until later, but that Josh could handle their patients until she arrived.

She fell asleep shortly after sending the message and slept through the night without a single nightmare.

* * *

The next morning dawned and Draco rolled out of his bed, ate, worked out for a bit, and then showered, shaved and got dressed in a nice pair of black trousers, a light gray dress shirt, and his nice dress shoes before deciding to forego wearing a tie, but pulling on a fitted sport coat instead.

He hadn't made the front page of the Daily Prophet, but there was a bit written on him in the society column, both of the photos from yesterday had been used, and it was titled, "Malfoy Heir Returns!".

He didn't bother reading whatever drivel they wrote about him, he just hoped that it wasn't going to be the hot topic that his colleagues would be discussing at the meeting today.

He apparated to the lobby of St. Mungo's at 8:45, his briefcase in hand, his lab coat draped over his arm, his long hair pulled back into a haphazard but still professional-looking bun.

"I'm here for the nine o'clock board meeting.", he said to the receptionist.

"Through there, end of the hall past the emergency department.", she said, not looking up at him from her magazine, jabbing her thumb to the door to her right.

Draco nodded and walked away.

He was halfway down the department and pulling on his lab coat when he heard screams and saw a patient being rushed in with a serious bleed.

Draco dropped his belongings and ran to the patient.

* * *

Hermione woke up late that morning, rolling over and shrieking when she saw the time.

She quickly ate a piece of toast and gulped down some tea as she waved her wand around like a madwoman, summoning her scrubs from her practice to her and jumping into them as she twirled her wand and commanded her generally unruly hair back into a French braid.

She charmed her makeup into place and pulled on her Dansko clogs before feeding Crookshanks, grabbing her tote bag, summoning her lab coat to her and apparating into the lobby of St. Mungo's.

She quickly walked towards the emergency department but stopped short when a patient was levitated in by several medi-witches with compound fracture to his right femur, blood rushing all over the place, the patient screaming bloody murder.

Hermione sprang into action, dropped her bags and pushed the doors to the emergency department open.

"I need a gurney!", she shouted.

Christ, that was a lot of blood…

She grabbed gloves and scissors and started cutting the pants away to get to the wound.

There was so much blood.

There was an artery that must've been grazed, probably the femoral artery, but she was focused on determining the extent of the break.

Someone got across from her and the next thing she knew, there was a tourniquet magicked around the upper leg, the time appearing on the closure, and a gloved hand went right into the wound, blood spraying on her before stopping as the other person placed their finger in the artery, effectively providing a plug for the blood loss.

"As many pints of O neg as you can manage, stat!", the person shouted and she glanced up at them, and blanched as she came face to face with Draco Malfoy.

Draco's grey eyes widened as they locked with Hermione's deep brown.

"You.", they both breathed at the same time.


	3. Chapter 3

The moment broke as Draco spoke, his voice even, yet commanding, like he had been in this situation many times before.

"Take his BP and O2 levels... my hands are occupied."

Hermione nodded and obeyed, relaying the stats to Draco as medi-witches and wizards rushed around them, one of them sedating the patient.

It was pandemonium, but as they made eye contact again, they both felt an odd sort of peace in the space between breaths.

"Get me gauze, lots of it. I have to pack it. I have to try something, so you're going to have to lower the gurney height and reserve judgement for later."

Hermione nodded and obeyed, lowering the gurney and rummaging frantically through the cabinets for the gauze, eventually just using a summoning spell for it.

"How much do you weigh?" Draco asked, casually as if he was asking for the time of day.

"I beg your pardon!" She gasped, appalled.

"Answer the question, Granger!" he barked, rolling his eyes.

"58 kilograms!" she shouted back.

"127 pounds…Perfect. Get on the gurney and use your knee to put all your weight on the distal abdominal artery." he said, pointing with his free hand to the space where the artery would be.

"What?" Hermione sputtered.

"Just do it!" Draco commanded, "Applying a 120-pound weight to the abdominal artery can cut off blood flow to the femoral artery. You're a little more than that, but it'll work."

Hermione obeyed, and she started seeing the exposed tissues blanching as she applied her weight on the artery.

"Good. Hand me the gauze. I'm going to remove my finger now and start packing it as tightly as I can. You are not going to move a muscle off that artery or I'm going to have to pronounce time of death. Got it?"

Hermione nodded and Draco nodded back.

"Good. Ready?"

Another nod.

Draco began packing the wound with laser-like focus, clearly having done this before.

She took that time to look him over.

 _Dr. Draco Malfoy, MD, FACS, FCCM_ was written across the breast pocket of his lab coat.

" _Oh, so he is a doctor? And a fellow of critical care medicine as well? Oh, shit. He's the new chief of critical care."_ she thought to herself.

"I'm going to loosen the tourniquet. Grab your wand and start performing stability charms. Don't move off that artery." Draco said quietly as his wand circled the packed wound, driving the gauze in deeper and deeper, another bandage coming out of the end of his wand and wrapping around the wound, carefully avoiding the femur.

Hermione nodded and obeyed, whispering the charms as he worked to loosen the tourniquet.

The wound was stabilized in a few minutes and Draco looked up at Hermione.

Hermione found her voice.

"Raise the leg. It's been almost ten minutes. I'll begin letting up on the pressure."

Draco nodded and obeyed in return.

Hermione held her breath and removed her knee from the patient's abdomen.

"He's in stable condition for now… I suppose the only thing we can do now is call the orthopedic surgeon and hope they have a competent one here… he's going to need to have that femur fixed ASAP and I pity the doctor that has to fix it, because it seems to be shattered by the looks of it. My guess is that he fell from a broom." Draco said as he stood back and took in his bloodied appearance.

Hermione sighed and looked down at the arterial spray that covered her scrub top.

"That would be me..." she replied, shrugging slightly, shucking off her gloves and washing her hands, "I'm the orthopedic surgeon here."

Draco's eyebrows raised and he let out a low chuckle before pointing his wand at her.

She sprang into a defensive position out of habit; her wand at the ready.

"Relax, Granger…I'm just giving you a hand…" he said, holding up his hands defensively, "Scourgify."

The blood disappeared from her scrubs and skin.

"Fair's fair." she replied, pointing her wand at him and repeating the incantation.

"Thanks." he said, and Hermione was taken aback.

That was the first time he had ever thanked her.

She was about to ask him about his training while he washed his hands when Frederick Norrington ran into the ER and came across the two of them.

He was a stout older wizard with greying hair and a constantly flustered appearance.

"There you are! I came as soon as I heard.", he began, panting as though he had run a marathon and not from one end of the department to the other.

" _Apparently, not soon enough…"_ Draco thought to himself.

"Do you have a proper OR for Dr. Granger to begin treating this in? I'll assist her as this also falls into my area of expertise." Draco spoke.

"No…how long would it take for one to be set up?" Norrington asked.

Draco rolled his eyes and scoffed.

He would have to take back the things he said about Norrington. Clearly, the man was good and had his shit together on paper, but in reality, he was just a blustery mess of a wizard.

No wonder people didn't want to come here anymore.

"Merlin, you really have no clue." Hermione muttered.

"What do you usually do in cases like this?" Draco asked, folding his arms across his chest, his voice beginning to turn to ice, the same way it did when he had trained new residents who thought they were big shots because they got to be at Shock-Trauma. This icy tone was meant to take them down a peg, for them to learn some humility before they screwed up in surgery and killed a patient.

Norrington sputtered.

"Well, uh, we usually just _Episkey_ it back together and stitch it up… g-granted patients with injuries this severe usually die before we can stabilize them…"

"So, you basically let them die is what you're saying?" Draco replied, arching an eyebrow accusatorily, "Because I saw how _well_ you were prepared… none of these nurses know techniques to immediately stop trauma bleeds, every single one of them was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, only one of them had the good sense to sedate the patient. Dr. Granger had to _summon_ the gauze to her, for Merlin's sake!"

"I had to take the vital signs because nobody was reading them out and monitoring them like they should in an emergency situation." Hermione added.

Norrington went red in the face as he opened and closed his mouth uselessly.

"By the way, a fully functioning OR is a completely sterile room, blocked off from the rest of the hospital, it is kept cold to prevent germs and bacteria from growing, it has a prep room joined to it, as well as an area for the surgeons and other personnel to scrub in. There are also machines there to sterilize tools and instruments." Draco replied, "The table in there should be equipped with ortho accessories so that Granger can use traction techniques during orthopedic surgery, a kidney bridge, and stirrups. Your nephrology and OB-GYN doctors and nurses will thank you for it. Lucky for us, they should be easy enough to transfigure."

Draco glanced to Hermione, motioning for her to make additions.

Hermione nodded minutely and continued where Draco left off.

"In order for me to fix this," she said, gesturing to the busted femur, "we'll need an anesthesiologist, a few x-rays of the break, although I'd prefer MRIs to assess and rule out any hip joint damage, someone to monitor vitals, proper lighting, sterile instruments, plenty of surgical nurses, and at least one tech that can hand me my tools as I need them. I'll need my Stryker Ortho drills from my equipment locker at The Royal London Hospital. I'll need them sterilized and I'll have to find a power source for them. This femur isn't going back into place with a single spell, it's going to take some screws and pins and I'm not hand drilling anything."

Hermione tried to think back to her training in emergency medicine as she continued.

"There also has to be a crash cart with a defibrillator on standby in case the patient begins to go into cardiac arrest. We'll also need several pints of blood, O negative is preferable, for transfusions, someone to intubate the patient, and someone on hand to open at least one large-bore IV line, should we need it."

Norrington listened to all of their words.

"We don't have anything like that here." he stated lamely once they had finished speaking.

"Well, then I suppose it's a good thing you have us here." Hermione sighed and Draco glanced at her.

"What are you on about?" he asked.

"We both got near perfect marks in transfiguration, if memory serves me." she replied.

He nodded.

She did have a point.

Norrington groaned.

"I can find a spare room nearby that can be transfigured into a proper operating room…" he said, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and patting away the sweat that was beading up on his brow.

Clearly, he had underestimated just how lengthy this undertaking would be.

"Good, then we'll be off." Draco said, "I have to track down some _competent_ nurses in this place and Granger needs her tools. Send us a Patronus when you've located space for our operating room."

He spun on his heel and walked off to the receptionist's desk to retrieve the directory of employees, tapping the book with his wand to narrow his choices.

Hermione glanced at Norrington before following Malfoy.

"Excuse me, but I believe I should have a say in who I allow to be in the OR during _my_ procedure." she said, approaching the white-blonde man who was flipping angrily through the directory.

" _Our_ procedure, Granger, and your concern is noted, however, I'm used to selecting special teams for surgery, so if you could leave me to it, I'd appreciate it greatly." he replied, not looking at her.

Hermione placed a hand on the book, stopping his progress.

"What is your problem?" he asked, unable to keep the old sneer out of his voice.

Granger bristled at him. She supposed that now that the adrenaline rush from their earlier teamwork had worn off and they were no longer focused on saving a patient, they were slipping into their old, bad habits.

"My problem is that the last time I saw you, your best mate almost burned us alive. Now you expect us to be immaculate professionals, but I think I deserve an explanation as to why you're here."

"I'm here because I was needed here. I suppose you're here for the same reason?" Malfoy replied.

"I am. I am also qualified to make these decisions." she replied, trying to keep the haughty tone out of her voice and failing miserably.

"So am I." he replied coolly, turning his focus back onto the directory.

Hermione refused to be ignored, an irritating trait that she had retained from being brought up as an only child.

"Oh really? What hospital were you working in before this?"

"The R. Adams Cowley Shock-Trauma center in Baltimore, Maryland, I did my fellowship there… you mentioned keeping your tools at The Royal London Hospital, I assume that's where you usually do your surgeries?"

"Yes." Hermione replied, trying to keep the shock from showing on her face.

She was _not_ going to admit that he had more experience than she did.

"Well, they're both good hospitals. I did my residency at Johns Hopkins, I assume you did yours at the Royal London, that seems about right, especially if you studied at Cambridge like most orthopedic surgeons do?" He replied, glancing at her, his silver-grey eyes softening slightly as he spoke, "Anyhow, I think we should choose these nurses together, after all, we'll have to be working with them, might as well make sure they aren't total idiots before asking them to sign on as surgical staff." He continued.

His response was more mature than she had expected from him.

Well, he wasn't the slimy little git she had punched in third year anymore…

No, he had grown into himself.

It was then that she gave herself the chance to look him over for the first time in twelve years.

He was tall and slender, but she could tell that his lab coat and dress shirt hid lean muscle. His white-blonde hair was pulled back into a messy bun at the back of his head. His jawline was still strong, but not as pointy as it had been when he was sixteen. He had long fingers that were tapered, he didn't wear a wedding ring, and he had steady hands, which was a job requirement for surgeons in general, but she recalled how he held his wand during school, and he had never been unsteady, except that fateful day when they were captured and taken to his manor…

The day his crazy Aunt Bellatrix had tortured her right in front of him, carving the word _"Mudblood"_ into her arm.

She recalled staring dead-eyed in his direction, in shock from the pain, bracing for the next Cruciatus curse.

She could see his hands shaking in her mind's eye, as vividly as if it were happening right in front of her.

Hermione quickly glanced away and placed a hand over her left forearm, feeling the slight rise of the scars through her long-sleeved shirt and lab coat.

"You're right. Better make sure those nurses know what to do and are competent enough to be trained to do it…" she muttered.

Draco glanced at Hermione then, his eyes taking her in.

She had grown into a rather lovely woman, and he wasn't lying. Her hair was still frizzy, but it was braided back and neat. She was curvier than he recalled, and still just as tall as she had been in their sixth year.

She didn't wear a ring, so, as far as he could tell, she wasn't married, like so many of their classmates were. Then again, most women in medicine didn't wear their rings to work, especially not if they worked in a hospital.

She rubbed her left inner forearm absentmindedly, and a memory of her at age seventeen came rushing back to him, rising up unbidden and horrible before his mind's eye.

She was lying on the floor of the drawing room at the manor, writhing in agony and screaming as Bellatrix tortured her with the Cruciatus and interrogated her about a bloody sword, of all things.

He remembers being frozen where he stood as his aunt had pressed her knife to her throat, drawing small droplets of blood as she whimpered, then he remembered shaking as she faced him and screamed, her eyes wide and bloodshot as Bellatrix carved that ugly word into her flesh.

"Come on, Granger, lets find an office somewhere and go through this book. It'll go faster if we split the work." he said, clearing his throat, "The less time we spend on this, the more time we'll have creating a proper operating room."

Hermione nodded.

"I thing the board room is probably free." she supplied.

"Good idea." He stated, lifting the directory and carrying it as they walked back to the emergency department.

If only Ron and Harry could see her now, fraternizing with the enemy.

But Malfoy wasn't their enemy anymore, for all she could tell, he had grown into a very well-adjusted adult.

Her concept of good and bad had always included shades of grey between the light and dark, and she wasn't as golden as all the wizarding world thought she was.

If they only knew the type of things she had done in the war. She had killed, but she had been on the _right side_ , so there had been no hearing for her.

Malfoy had been coerced and threatened into being a Death Eater, he had been used by Voldemort, who had intended upon disposing of him once he had killed Dumbledore, just to get the Elder Wand.

He had been forced to watch in silence as terrible things happened, helpless to stop them.

She knew what a strong motivator fear could be.

She had been there herself.

He had nearly been sent to Azkaban for being a victim himself, an unwilling participant who had to either act the part or die.

It wasn't fair how he had treated her in school, but he didn't deserve prison for his stupid childhood actions either.

Shades of gray.

That's all it was.

They walked through the emergency department and had almost reached the male patient with the shattered femur when they heard someone say _"Episkey!"_ and blood sprayed onto the curtain surrounding the patient's bed.

Draco dropped the directory, and Hermione gasped as he swore loudly and they both sprinted to the patient's bed.

A junior Healer stood over the patient, repeating incantations to stop the hemorrhaging, but to no avail. He was shaking like mad and Draco pulled out his wand.

" _VULNERA SANENTUR!"_ he roared, scaring the junior Healer as Hermione drew her own wand and shouted, _"BRACKIUM EMENDO!"_

The bleeding didn't stop, dark blood still gushing from the wound and turning the white dressing and bed covers bright red, but the femur did pop back into place with a sickening crunch.

Hermione jumped back onto the gurney and went to kneel on the abdominal artery again, but it was too late, the patient had lost too much blood, and had passed.

"Time of death, 9:37 am."

"Time of death, oh-nine-thirty-seven hours."

Hermione and Draco met each other's gaze once more as they both called time of death at the same time, hers in standard, his in military, the way they did it at Shock-Trauma.

They both held their silence a moment, Hermione bowing her head and moving off of the gurney, before rounding on the junior Healer.

"Who put you up to that task?" Draco said harshly.

"Because of your lack of judgement, this man is dead!" Hermione shouted, gesturing to the body as she backed away from the gurney and waved her wand, a sheet appearing and fluttering down gently over the deceased.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think-" the junior Healer began, shaking where he stood.

"No, you didn't think. I ought to throw you out of here for that." Draco commanded, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"You can't!" cried the young Healer, "Not for one mistake! I-I don't even know who you are! Norrington is in charge of staff!"

Draco, who had clearly had enough of the young man's stammering, said, "Come on, we're taking this elsewhere out of respect for others." and grabbed him by his upper arm and pulled him into the nearest, empty private room, Hermione walking quickly after them, closing the door behind them and casting a Silencing charm so that nobody could overhear what was said.

Draco released the young man once they were there.

He took a deep breath as the junior Healer continued stuttering out excuses, finally cutting him off when he started repeating that Norrington was the only one who could fire staff at St. Mungo's.

"While Norrington is the only one who can terminate your employment here, for the time being, _I_ am the chief of critical care, which means that this emergency department, this trauma bay, is _my territory_." Draco replied, calmer this time as he jabbed his thumb towards the door.

"This patient's death happened on my watch at the hands of one of my employees, which is you, so while you were at fault, I will be the one that has to tell his family that he has died." he continued.

"But-" the young man began, and Draco held up his hand.

"No. You listen now. You'll have your chance to speak, but I want you to listen to what I have to say first. Tell me, have you ever had to take a family into the quiet room and tell them that their loved one is dead? Because I have. Where I come from, people get shot in the streets like animals, people get thrown from cars, run over, impaled on trees, you name it, I've seen it. It never gets easier the more times you have to tell people that someone they love has died. I've said my part, now I want you to tell me who gave you permission to perform a spell that you should know is only for minor breaks, sprains, and abrasions?" Draco asked.

"I did it on my own. Nobody authorized me…" the young Healer replied.

"There were no senior Healers around to advise against this?" Hermione asked, finally speaking up.

"No Nurse…"

" _Doctor_. You'll address her as _Dr. Granger_ or ma'am, as she sees fit _._ You'll address me as Dr. Malfoy or sir. Now apologize at once, she worked hard for that title, as did I." Draco said.

"Sorry, Dr. Granger… nobody authorized me."

"What is your name and your position here?" Hermione asked.

"Alex Swan… Junior Healer, ma'am…" he replied.

Swan looked between them carefully, a look of realization finally dawning on him.

"Merlin… I recognize you two now…You're Draco Malfoy, the Death Eater that got exiled twelve years ago, and you're Hermione Granger, the Golden Trio girl!" he gasped.

Hermione rolled her eyes as Draco groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Alright then, Junior Healer Swan, enough of the fawning, yes we were in the War, so were a lot of people, we're straying too far from the topic at hand… how long have you been licensed to work here?" Draco said.

"I've been here for two years now…"

"Then you have had training on proper wound care, especially in cases of trauma bleeding?"

"No, Dr. Malfoy… the patients usually don't live that long if they're bleeding out, unless it's a splinching accident, then that's relatively easy to fix with some spells and some essence of dittany."

Draco looked at Hermione and muttered, "I feel like I've been thrown back to the dark ages."

"So, the golden hour of trauma care means nothing to you? You've never had to attend a Stop the Bleed seminar?" Draco asked, "How are you even remotely allowed to work in an emergency department without basic knowledge like that? Do you even know how to perform CPR?"

"I usually don't work in the emergency department." Swan replied.

"Then where do you usually work?" Hermione asked, becoming fed up herself with the answers he was giving them.

"I usually work in the potions lab, but we're so short-staffed here that I had to get my certification rather quickly. I've been a licensed potions understudy for three and a half years now, I started that once I graduated from Hogwarts…they made me double with Healing arts, and I had to split my time between both studies…"

"So, you didn't even start at Hogwarts until a few years after the battle happened…" Hermione stated, earning a nod from Swan.

"Let me guess, you didn't like full-on Healing, so you only paid enough attention in those lessons to scrape by with a barely passing grade?" Draco asked rhetorically.

Another nod.

The silence in the room was almost deafening until Draco spoke again.

"Well then, how many other junior Healers are there here that don't want to be Healers at all?"

Swan shrugged.

"Probably more than anyone would care to admit."

"So, do you want to be a Healer or not?" Hermione asked.

Swan nodded.

"I do, but only if I get trained to do so properly. There's a lot of things that we should have learned at the academy, but the academy was destroyed in the War and most of the professors were killed for their blood status or went abroad and never came back." Swan stated, "A lot of textbooks on the Healing Arts were destroyed as well, some of them at the hands of Death Eaters, most of them at the hands of professors who didn't want their life's work to be abused."

"How did you learn?" Draco asked.

"Basic lectures, reading the books that weren't destroyed, mostly by experience. You see, once the War was over, a lot of the old Healers came out of retirement, and we're talking the really old ones, some of whom still remember the time when you had to be half-blood or purer to become a Healer. Most of those lot are dead now, but you also had a lot of junior Healers and medi-witches and wizards that were promoted almost overnight, so you also had less experienced people holding positions that should have gone to those with more experience."

"I remember that." Hermione said, glancing at Draco as he raised his eyebrows at her, "Most of the graduates from Hogwarts who did decide to go into medicine went to muggle universities and colleges."

"Ah, I see…" Draco acknowledged as Swan nodded.

"If you were graduating and had decent NEWTs in Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions, you were immediately sat down with a St. Mungo's rep and they tried to get you to join the hospital. Most of the pureblooded students who were offered jobs here signed up, myself included. Nearly all the muggle born and half-blood students who Mungo's tried to recruit declined the offer and went to muggle school instead."

"It seems our work is cut out for us then, Dr. Granger, wouldn't you agree?" Draco sighed as he crossed his arms and looked at Hermione.

She nodded in response.

"So it would seem, Dr. Malfoy."

Swan glanced between them.

"What work was cut out for us?" he asked.

"The work that was cut out for _us_ ," Hermione gestured between herself and Draco, "is that we have to practically rebuild this place from the foundation up. A lot of doctors were supposed to meet today to discuss how we would take on this task of reinvigorating St. Mungo's, but we've been preoccupied by your blunder and the death of a patient, so we've missed that meeting."

"Anyway, we've seen enough, or at least I've seen enough, to know what has to happen here." Draco added, "All of you need to be retrained, taught how to practice both muggle medicine and the healing arts, that way we can preserve the traditions and hopefully make strides towards increasing the population and health of the magical community as a whole."

He looked at Hermione, pausing so she could add to his words, but she nodded in agreement, and, even though they had never been on the same page or even _close_ per se, he understood that he had summed up everything succinctly enough for her to be satisfied.

"So, I'm not in trouble?" Swan asked tentatively.

Draco laughed, a short, sarcastic bark of a sound, and shook his head.

"Hell no, Swan, aside from being written up, you're going to learn the first part of being a CNA, or certified nursing assistant, we're talking cleaning up after patients, and no magic. The muggles don't get to use magic in their training or their practice and neither did I when I was trained. Look how I turned out. You'll learn the hard way and be all the better for it."

Swan's face fell.

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the young man's facial expression.

"B-But I'm a pureblood…I can't do this job without magic…" Swan stuttered.

Draco laughed then, truly laughed.

Hermione was shocked and her eyebrows rocketed towards her hairline at the odd sound of his laughter.

There was no malice or sarcasm in the laugh, just a pure and simple response to a humorous and weak comeback.

"So am I, but I managed. Muggles are making a surprising go at it, and doing a better job at healing their people than we are!" He replied, "So, with that said, you're going to go home and research all you can about CNAs and the important work they do, you're dismissed for the day… if Norrington asks, I'll tell him what happened, you have Dr. Granger here as my witness. She wouldn't lie to save my skin, so you can put your trust in her, even if you can't trust me for being a _former_ Death Eater."

Swan nodded and left the room, leaving only Hermione and Draco in there.

Draco uncrossed his arms and leaned forward.

"Well, we haven't received Norrington's Patronus yet, so shall we get to work?" Draco asked.

Hermione nodded.

"I don't see why not, although I would be quite interested to hear more about your, erm, _exile_." She replied.

Draco sighed and transfigured the empty bed in the room into a desk with two chairs and motioned for Hermione to sit.

"Well, I suppose I might as well. I have a feeling you won't ever completely trust me as a person, and rightly so, but I'm hoping that if I satisfy your curiosity, you'll stop asking about the past twelve years?"

Hermione shook her head.

"I trust you as a professional. We both have the same goals in mind. I do have to wonder why you chose to be a doctor." She replied, still shocked at his civility.

"Probably the most cliched answer ever, but I wanted to help people. I wanted to help them and save the lives that I couldn't save during the war…" he glanced up from his folded hands, his grey eyes boring into her, looking right into her soul, "Are you satisfied?"

"I'll probably never be fully satisfied, but my curiosity has been fulfilled for the time being." She replied.

"Never thought I'd hear you admit that you were unsatisfied." Draco said, "Mind if I ask you a question now?"

"It's only fair, I suppose."

"Are you married and do you have children?" He asked.

Hermione felt her face grow hot as a blush rushed into her cheeks.

"No. Why do you ask?"

That was a surprise.

He expected her to be married to Weasley with a litter of red-headed rug rats.

"Oh? Well, I was just wondering how many other school mates of mine were married and had children…apparently Pansy and Blaise have a couple kids and so do Potter and Ginny. I was also trying to determine whether or not I should have a secondary ortho surgeon on standby just in case you were a mum and had to attend a family emergency." He replied, raising his hands in defense, "I didn't mean to be rude, I apologize if I came across that way."

Hermione was stunned by his reasoning and didn't reply.

Draco felt the tense silence and spoke up, "In my defense, I'd be asking the same questions if you were a male, just so you know I don't mean anything sexist by my line of inquiry."

Hermione shook her head then.

"No, its fine, I just wasn't expecting that question in particular… Uh, are you married and do you have children as well?" Hermione asked, "Twelve years is a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if you did."

Draco shook his head.

"I'm not married and I don't have children. My mum was hinting at wanting some grandchildren though, but I'm not in any rush to settle down, so that's that."

"How is Narcissa, anyway? Harry is Teddy's godfather, so he goes over to have dinner with Andromeda and Narcissa every Thursday evening, but I haven't spoken to Harry in a bit… He and Ginny have been busy with moving into a new house and Harry's been made a senior Auror, Ginny's been trying to get back into her Quidditch training, you know she's a chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, right? They're making a good run at the World Cup this season…" Hermione rambled.

"Uh, mum is good, definitely thriving now my dad's in prison, I'm quite proud of her for embracing more muggle ways of life…" Draco replied, surprised at how easily talking to Hermione was.

Draco felt a stab of guilt for bullying Hermione mercilessly when they were younger, she really didn't deserve that, not when they could have very well been friends, had Lucius not so deeply engrained his hatred and blood prejudice into him as a small child.

Hermione nodded and pushed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat, absentmindedly rubbing her right calf with the top of her left Dansko clog.

"Yeah, we've all changed over the years for the better… I guess time does heal, huh? Now, what were your ideas for hybrid medicine?" She said, making eye contact with Draco.

He nodded and went into a lecture on how his training in trauma medicine could be applied to magical healing arts, but how he still preferred a non-magical approach to healing, simply because the statistics supported muggle medicine.

The two doctors spent the next half hour bouncing ideas off of each other until they were interrupted by a glowing white anteater lumbering into the room and speaking in Norrington's voice.

" _The operating theatre is ready. Follow my Patronus there."_

Draco and Hermione shared a glance and closed the directory, folded up their notes, and followed the anteater from the room and into a hallway off the emergency department.

They followed the creature into a room that was horrifyingly like an old 19th century operating theatre, save for the fact that it had been cleaned up somewhat and was filled with other people chatting idly amongst themselves in the raised seating around the dais.

Norrington saw them arrive and clapped his hands together, bringing the room to attention.

"So sorry to delay our meeting, but our final two members have arrived, may I present our new Chief of Orthopedics, Dr. Hermione Granger and our new Chief of Critical Care and Trauma medicine, Dr. Draco Malfoy." Norrington spoke.

As soon as he said Draco's name, whispers broke out among the gathered professionals.

They had all heard of his involvement in the War, and apparently, his infamous name was more interesting to talk about than Granger's Golden Trio status.

This would be quite interesting indeed.

Draco squared his shoulders, an act that didn't go unnoticed by Hermione.

He was still dealing with the prejudice that surrounded his name, but he had no choice but to face it headfirst, which is what he was doing.

"I'm glad I won't have to be working with him…" muttered one dark-skinned female doctor, pushing some of her box braids over her shoulder with a haughty sniff, "His lot deserve to rot in Azkaban, in my opinion."

Hermione saw Draco rub his hand absentmindedly over his left inner forearm, pressing the fabric of his sleeve into the spot where the Dark Mark was still branded into his flesh. She saw him swallow, saw a muscle clench in his jaw.

"Hey," She spoke, before she consciously made the choice to do so, directing her words at the dark-skinned witch, "what's your name and what field are you in charge of?"

"Dr. Alicia Bennet, Dermatology…" she replied.

"Well, Dr. Bennet, nice to meet you, and I hate to burst your bubble, but if we get a burn victim brought into the ER, guess who's going to be assisting you in primary treatment?" Hermione said, jabbing her thumb towards Draco, "He will. I suggest you all get over your prejudices, because Dr. Malfoy happens to know what he's doing."

Draco inhaled sharply at her defensive words, not expecting Hermione Granger, of all people, to come to his defense.

There was fire in her eyes, her glare daring another doctor or professional to say something about his presence there, that Gryffindor bravery shielding her like armor.

Dr. Bennet inclined her head in acquiescence.

"My apologies, it's just hard for some of us to forgive as easily as you have, Dr. Granger." She replied, her colleagues nodding and murmuring in agreement.

"If you want to see my work history, I'll email you my resume, cover letter, and letters of recommendation. As for prior convictions, I don't have any, my only one was overturned twelve years ago, as you all know. If you want someone to vouch for my behavior in the US, I'll send you the contact information for my MACUSA case worker." Draco replied, "If you have any problems with me that have to do with my performance as a medical professional here, I suggest you speak to me in private or send me an email or an owl at your earliest convenience. I will not be entertaining any inquiries into my upbringing or my actions during the War, as we have far too much to focus on here at St. Mungo's."

Hermione nodded in agreement.

Norrington looked like he was about to pass out.

Clearly, he had bitten off more than he could chew in terms of the types of professionals he had just hired to revamp St. Mungo's.

"Without any further ado, I suggest we begin the meeting… I apologize for the delay, there was an emergency which Dr. Malfoy and Dr. Granger had to attend to… how is that patient faring, anyway?" Norrington asked.

"He's dead." Hermione bit out.

"Junior Healer Swan has also been sent home for the day, and he has been tasked with learning about the job of a CNA, as that will be his new position until he proves that he can do that job well without needing magic to do it. There is also going to be a write-up in his personnel file on his actions here today." Draco replied.

"Don't you think that's a bit harsh?" Came a voice from the assembled professionals.

"No, I do not." Draco replied, "And may I have your name?"

"Dr. Damien Mortimer… I'm just one of the new GPs here and the chief of General Medicine, but I am interested to hear about what sort of actions we'll be taking to retrain the medi-witches and medi-wizards and how we'll go about implementing hybrid care into daily practices. No offense to you, Dr. Malfoy, but Dr. Fatima Abdullah and I both know that if we just randomly switch from potions to injections, we'll have a lot of people freaking out."

"Before you ask, I'm Dr. Abdullah, and I'm the chief of Pediatric Primary Medicine." Came the voice of a middle aged woman of middle eastern descent who was wearing a deep blue hijab, "I've been in this field for almost twenty years now, and I can say with confidence that magical children are very likely to be terrified of modern medical practices, no matter how non-invasive they may be, and this is usually a direct result of their parents and elders telling them horror stories of muggle doctors cutting people up for fun, as I'm sure many of us heard when we were young…"

"What do you suggest we do about this, Dr. Abdullah?" Draco asked, "I have some experience with pediatric trauma care, but I am interested in hearing your input."

Dr. Abdullah sighed.

" _Inshallah_ , I hope that we can start to bridge the gap with the help of the Ministry as well as hopefully having some doctors and nurses visit Hogwarts and the other magic schools and academies to lecture them on the importance of modern medicine and to host Q and A sessions to help assuage student's fears and apprehensions regarding modern techniques. Sometimes, we have to change the minds of the young to move the hearts of the old." She replied.

The assembled doctors and professionals nodded and murmured in their agreement.

"I like that idea, Dr. Abdullah, if you would like to help lead the charge on this topic, I'll have my secretary start drafting ideas for a series of pamphlets to be distributed by the Ministry's Department of Health. Each branch of medicine should convene and brainstorm ideas on what to include in the pamphlet series." Norrington added, "As for retraining our medi-witches and wizards, we should form mandatory classes to retrain all of them, and I will see to it that our junior and senior staff has these classes as well."

"This will be a massive undertaking, there will be a lot of work to do and we'll face a lot of pushback and resistance, but in the end, we'll be much better off for doing this." Draco spoke up, "But our community needs us now, more than ever. We all took the same oath, and it is our duty to uphold it to the best of our ability."

And as the operating theater was filled with applause and the murmurings of new ideas and concepts, Hermione met Draco's eyes and a moment of stillness fell between them.

For the first time in a long time, Hermione felt at ease with herself, knowing that there was someone else whose ambitious drive matched her own, knowing that, no matter their shared past, they would be able to work together to achieve what had been thought impossible.

She knew that they would disagree, but they had already proven themselves as successful colleagues, and surely would again, so that chance of disagreement didn't bother her.

Draco didn't pretend to know the future, for he had seen lives change in a series of split seconds and had saved them just as quickly, but something in him just knew that a partnership with Granger would be in his best interest.

Neither of them knew that the hardest test of all was yet to come.

Abbreviations:

BP: Blood Pressure

O2: Oxygen

OR: Operating Room

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging

CNA: Certified Nursing Assistant


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione broke her gaze from Draco's as Norrington called out over the din.

"Now that we've all agreed that changes need to be made, I'll send you on your way, you'll be escorted to your departments by my associates where you'll meet your teams and begin implementing your new procedures and care plans. To keep everyone on the same page, I would urge you to send interdepartmental memos to the other heads of departments, especially if those departments overlap, for example, Dr. Bennet in dermatology will be working closely with Dr. Ann Lee and Dr. Bradley Wang in our cosmetic and reconstructive surgery department. Every single one of you will be working with Dr. Leah Brahms and Dr. Elizabeth Steele, who are our respective chiefs of oncology and nuclear medicine."

Murmurs of agreement went up from the assembled, and Draco muttered something to Norrington that Hermione couldn't make out.

"And Dr. Malfoy has just reminded me that this is our primary operating room, so departments should proceed through here in alphabetical order to make the necessary changes and feel free to transfigure your tools and equipment. These changes will then be copied and implemented into the other operating rooms that will be coming soon."

"Eventually," Draco began, "we hope to have separate operating rooms for certain departments, that way we won't get a backup of patients needing to be scheduled for surgery, I will take it upon myself to transfigure at least two ORs in the ER for emergency surgery. Labor and Delivery can utilize these in the event of an emergency C-Section, at least until theirs are set up and running."

Draco looked around at the assembled before nodding.

Hermione could already recognize it as a look of determination, as if he were saying to himself _"Yes. This will do."_

Hermione pulled out her wand and sent a ribbon into the air that coiled itself into the word "Ortho", her way of summoning her team to her.

One of Norrington's associates hurried over to her.

"Dr. Granger, hi, my name is Wanda Wilson, I'm going to be your administrative assistant." She spoke.

"I hate to be short with you, but I already have one of them, you'll be of more use to me as a physical therapist or radiology technician… can you do either of those things?" Hermione asked as other doctors and professionals began to surround her.

Wanda's face fell.

"I can try…"

"Trying isn't good enough, I'm afraid, but you know what you can do for me? You can build up our department by recruiting junior Healers and nurses, medi-witches and wizards, as you call them here, for our department, and you can oversee everyone's recertifications as well as outreach. You'll be my jack of all trades, and I promise you, we will make this work, but I'm asking a lot from you, so you have to be all in, understood?" Hermione said, and Wanda nodded, "This is going to be a massive undertaking, just like Dr. Malfoy said it would, are you sure you're up to this?"

"With all due respect, Dr. Granger, I've been ready for this massive undertaking for a long time." She replied confidently.

Hermione nodded and clasped her hands together near her waist as she looked around at her new colleagues and peers.

"Well, hello, as you heard, my name is Hermione Granger, and I'm your new head of orthopedics. I am excited to get this department off the ground, and I am looking forward to meeting all of you in due time. Miss Wilson will be our liaison, or go-between, so to speak, between Norrington and the rest of the hospital. If you have any questions about St. Mungo's, do not hesitate to ask her. Shall we begin?"

Her group nodded and Wanda began to lead them from the room towards the lifts in the hallway.

Hermione glanced to her right as she filed out with her team, catching Draco's steely gray-eyed gaze as she passed.

He had really shaped up into a brilliant young man, and he would no doubt wind up collaborating with her on many procedures, as treating severe trauma often involved a great deal of orthopedic care.

Draco's lips pulled up into a soft smile and he inclined his head slightly in her direction as he straightened his tie.

Hermione felt butterflies rise up in her stomach at his gentle gesture and she nodded in return before leaving the room.

" _Where did that come from?"_ She thought to herself as she got into the lift and rode up to level four, which was the ortho ward on the south side of the hospital, the physical therapy and rehabilitative ward on the north side.

She and Draco were colleagues now, no more, no less.

Right?

Hours later, her department was up and running and physical therapy was starting to get off the ground, definitely progressing ahead of schedule.

Then again, her colleagues had reassured her that they already had ideas and plans for their specific areas of expertise, and she had trusted them.

Her stomach growled around one thirty in the afternoon and she asked Wanda if the cafeteria food was good.

"Oh, Merlin no… eating here is a one-way ticket to gastroenterology trouble… no, you're much better off at Savoy's Café, about a block north of here, with the yellow awning, you can't miss it. They have good coffee, if that's what you like… I recommend the turkey and cheddar on rye." She replied.

"Thank you for that, Wanda."

"No problem, Dr. G. See you in a few, yeah?"

Hermione nodded and walked out of the department, digging through her purse and pulling out a book.

She could do with some food and a bit of light reading.

Draco gathered his people and went to level two, where his people immediately began transfiguring all available spaces into private trauma bays.

His team knew what to do, and he was fortunate to have other surgeons, techs, and nurses who knew what to do without being asked, most of whom had trained in hospitals with their own trauma care departments.

His associate, a lanky medi-witch by the name of Gina Wick, was filling him in on their necessary personnel, again, most of them having been selected for their respective jobs before he had even expressed an interest in the chief position.

It was refreshing and reminded him of his team at home.

" _No. My home is here now, in London… Baltimore was my home… I'm not at Shock-Trauma anymore…"_ He corrected himself in his mind before going into his office and closing the door behind himself.

He dropped into the oak swivel chair behind his desk and began making a list of things to do.

Two hours later, he had completed the list, assigned duties to his colleagues and staff, and began making his rounds in the emergency department.

After completing his rounds and viewing a bunch of preliminary lab results, prescribing potions and the like, he finally decided to go to lunch.

God, it was after one o'clock already… he had been so caught up with work that he barely noticed the time.

Draco left the hospital for a small café he knew was around the corner, one that his mum had told him about the other night, and as he walked, he let his mind wander back through the day's interactions.

Who would have guessed that he would have run into Hermione Granger, of all people?

It was certainly a surprise to see her across the gurney when that one unfortunate patient had been brought in.

He had already informed the next of kin and referred them to a grief counselor in the hospital's mental health department for sessions.

That part of his job never got easier and he hoped it never did, because, when it did become easy, he would have to take a sabbatical and then have to regain his humanity.

Death should never be easy.

He entered the café and stood in the queue, reading the menu board before ordering and paying.

He was in the queue for his order pickup, thinking about the rest of his busy to-do list when he was brought out of his thoughts by a soft voice behind him.

"Oh… hello there, Dr. Malfoy."

He pivoted on his heel to come face to face with Hermione Granger.

Butterflies sprang to life in his chest and he swallowed them down before inclining his head to her.

"Ah, Dr. Granger, fancy meeting you here…" Draco replied.

"Well, it is lunch time… I had hoped to get some air, perhaps read a bit…" she replied, shifting on her feet.

He nodded, unsure of how to continue.

"So…what did you order?" He asked, attempting to get the fluttery sensation in his chest under control.

"Turkey and cheddar on rye… my associate recommended it, you?"

"Erm, the grilled ham and cheese and tomato soup… It sounded good…" he replied, collecting his food as his order number was called.

Hermione collected her order and they went over to a table and sat down.

"Full disclosure, I was never a huge fan of working in hospitals… the smell… it gets to you after a bit, you know?" Hermione said as they tucked into their meals, simply breaking the silence.

"I've become accustomed to it. I promise that you'll hardly notice it in time… If I may ask, what are you reading?", Draco asked, nodding towards the worn novel poking out of her purse.

Hermione tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and sipped her water.

" _Pride and Prejudice_ by Jane Austen… I must've read it a hundred times, but I do enjoy it…"

Draco nodded.

"Have you ever read it?" She asked, her brown eyes meeting his silver ones, interest coloring her words as they slipped from her lips.

"No…" he shook his head, "I haven't quite had the time to do much reading… what's it about?"

Hermione animatedly gave an overview of the novel.

Draco absorbed every word, thinking that he should definitely give it a read.

"…I also enjoy _Sense and Sensibility_ , so I do recommend that one as well." Hermione finished.

They sat in silence for a bit.

"I'm sorry." Draco finally said, breaking the silence.

"What for?"

"I was a spoiled prat in school… you were a know it all, but you didn't deserve any of what I said or did to you."

Hermione looked taken aback.

An apology was the last thing she expected from him.

After a few beats of silence, Draco went to ramble on about how much of an idiot child he was, but Hermione cut him off.

"I forgive you."

"You do?"

Hermione nodded.

"I know what your father did to you… I read the minutes from your trial… it makes sense why you did what you did… you, you didn't have much of a choice from the sound of things… Sort of a join or die scenario, yeah?" She replied, her voice dropping into a whisper.

Draco swished the remainder of his coffee in the bottom of his cup and nodded.

"Little bit more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell, I suppose…" he replied, glancing up at her, "Uh, can we talk about something else now…"

Hermione inhaled sharply.

Of course he wouldn't want to talk about the War. Nobody did. Not even years after the fact.

"Sure… no problem… uh, are you excited to be home?" She asked, "I imagine that the manor is an upgrade from wherever you were living in the US?"

Draco chuckled dryly and downed the remainder of his coffee.

"I don't live at the manor…"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, my mum hasn't set foot there since my father's trial, and neither have I… I actually live in Holland Park now, in the mews, actually… my old place in Fell's Point, er, that's a neighborhood in Baltimore city, it's sort of like my current residence… reminds me of it in a way…"

Hermione nodded.

"That's nice… What's America like, anyway? I've never traveled there…"

"Oh, the weather is more varied than it is here, definitely more sunny days, and the humidity in the summertime is no joke, nor are the mosquitos, nasty little buggers…"

"They don't have a National Health service, do they?"

"No, not yet, but there is talk that President Obama has plans for a similar system… the premiums and copays over there are absolutely insane… as is the price of college tuition… most of my parent's fortune went towards that and I'm still paying for it…"

"Jesus…" Hermione breathed, "I knew mine was expensive, but that's insanity."

Draco laughed a bit and nodded.

"Don't I know it…"

Hermione smiled at him and spoke up.

"You know, your accent isn't like I remember it…"

"Baltimore rubbed off on me, my accent changed, as did I…speaking of changing, I do like the way you wear your hair now…" Draco added, "Very professional…"

"I see you decided to switch your hairstyle up a bit as well… longer hair suits you…"

"I'm not a spitting image of my father, I hope?"

"Merlin, no… your father could never pull off a ponytail or a messy bun… I think that's all your mother's influence there… it isn't as straight as I remember it being…" Hermione replied as they rose and left the café together, walking back to the hospital at a leisurely pace.

"I used to straighten it and use enough hair potion to choke a Hungarian Horntail… As well as being an absolute prat, I was also quite a vain little shit." Draco replied, causing Hermione to chuckle.

"I blame Slytherin house for the poor influence…" he added, grinning at her expression as they reentered the lobby of the hospital.

"You know, Malfoy, you're quite an easy person to talk to… I think America did you some good…" Hermione replied as they got into the lift.

"America definitely changed me, and you're not so insufferable anymore, Granger… I quite enjoyed talking to you as well. Same time and place tomorrow?" He responded, smiling slightly at her.

"Ah, I'd like to, but I have to resume my position at my private practice tomorrow…" Hermione said, shrugging, "You know how that goes… no rest for the doctors…"

"I'll send you an owl then, I'm planning on throwing a bit of a house warming party, just some old friends from school… you're welcome to attend, if you'd like." He replied, exiting the lift.

"I don't know… I'll see if I'm free… thank you for the conversation, I appreciated it."

"Yeah, sorry you didn't get to read…"

Hermione shrugged.

"I've read it so many times, I could probably recite it verbatim…"

Draco nodded.

"Thanks, Granger… See you around…" He said and walked away with a nod.

Hermione sighed as the doors slid shut, leaning back against the wall.

Lunch was a strange affair, but definitely an experience she wouldn't mind repeating.

Then she remembered Ron and groaned.

Ron had been gung-ho about Draco deserving prison time… Surely, he would find out about Draco's position here at Mungo's and lose his cool, not that he had much to begin with.

This was going to be quite the undertaking.

The rest of the day flew by and soon it was time to leave.

Hermione just apparated beck to her flat, intent upon reading _Pride and Prejudice_ , but her plans were derailed by Ron standing in her kitchen, cooking dinner for her.

"Ah, 'Mione, welcome home!", he said, crossing the room to kiss her.

"Ron, what are you doing here?" She asked, stunned that he would just turn up unannounced.

"Can't a bloke surprise his girlfriend every now and then? You've been working hard, love, besides, you won't believe who's returned to London…" The lanky redhead replied in a conspiratorial tone.

" _I'll bet you 200 Galleons that I know who you're about to mention… oh, and I had lunch with him…"_ Hermione thought to herself.

She just wanted Ron to leave her alone.

Was that too much to ask for? A bit of peace and quiet after a long day?

"Mum's been talking about Percy and Penelope, apparently Penelope is due any day now… fit to burst, mum says…" Ron rambled on as he returned to the kitchen and Hermione slipped into her bathroom and locked the door behind her with a complicated spell of her own creation.

She had created it after Ron had barged into her room after a breakup, demanding an explanation from her.

She could feel the vice tightening around her chest, the anxiety choking her from the inside out.

Why did she allow such things to go on?

This wasn't love and she knew it.

" _I've got to leave…"_ She thought to herself.

She stood and thought of someplace she could go…

Harry and Ginny were so busy right now, besides, they wouldn't be of much help… Ron's best friend and sister, for Merlin's sake… They'd probably take Ron's side anyway.

"'Mione, you alright in there?" Ron asked, rattling the doorknob, causing her to jump.

"Fine… just need to get cleaned up… I'll be a minute…" she called back.

" _Think, Hermione, think…"_

The only place she could think of were the Holland Park mews.

Surely, Draco wouldn't send her back to Ron… they were colleagues… she could transfigure her clothes, buy a bottle of wine, and they could toast their first day on the job… it would be strictly professional…

She nodded and unlocked the door, casting a silencing charm over the door as she opened it, wordlessly shrinking her purse and summoning it to her with a soft _"Accio"_.

She closed the bathroom door again, transfigured her scrubs into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and jumper. She inhaled before thinking of the Holland Park mews, turning on the spot and disappearing.

She landed in an alley, did a quick pointing spell, and walked to the nearest liquor store, buying some wine, before walking down the mews.

Draco was driving along when he spotted Hermione walking down his street with a paper bag in hand, looking rather unsure of herself.

"What the…" he muttered, pulling over and rolling down the window.

"Dr. Granger? Are you okay?" He asked, pulling up beside her.

Hermione jumped and gasped.

"Draco! Just the person I was looking for… I um, I thought we could toast to a successful day one…" She replied.

"Get in… we'll toast to day one, but you don't look well…" He said, clearly concerned for his colleague.

Hermione nodded, sliding into the SUV and bucking in.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get your address beforehand…"

"It's okay… erm, you didn't answer my question… Are you okay?" Draco asked again.

Hermione shook her head.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"A bit, yeah… it's pathetic, really…"

"Try me… I won't judge you…"

"It's my boyfriend… he's always there and I need a friend that won't drive me back to him or call him up… you know?"

"Clingy type of bloke?"

"You have no idea."

"Is it Weasley?" Draco asked.

"How did you know?"

"Just a hunch… has he…has he hurt you?"

"Not physically… I'm just… I need my space… I'm sorry to intrude on your life like this, but I didn't know where else to go…"

Draco shook his head.

"Hey, it's no problem… I-I'm glad I can help… at least now I can talk to someone other than Elise…"

"Who is Elise?" Hermione asked as they pulled into his garage.

He had told her that he wasn't married…

"My barn owl…"

"Oh, okay… I guess it's helpful when your conversation partner talks back, huh?" Hermione said, smirking.

"Quite helpful indeed…"

"Thank you again for helping me out like this… It must be rather strange, my intruding like this, just to be rid of Ron…"

Draco shook his head.

"I understand… my mum was married to my father, after all, so you can imagine the type of stuff that went on between them… besides, I don't have very many friends, and it would be great to talk about work with you, try to get a better idea at what we're going to have to do…"

"I suppose you're right."

"Come on then, I have some pasta in the refrigerator… I hope you don't mind leftovers…" Draco said, leading her up the stairs and into his home.

Neither of them noticed the beetle perched on the roof of Draco's car with odd shaped markings around its eyes, but the beetle heard and saw everything and crawled out of the garage and flew off into the cool night.


	5. Chapter 5

Ron was stirring simmering spaghetti sauce in a pan on the stove in Hermione's apartment when he heard a pop and then silence from the bathroom.

"Hermione? Are you okay in there?" He asked.

No reply.

He knocked on the door and pressed his ear to the wood.

After not receiving a response or hearing a sound from within the room, he apparated into the room and found that it was empty.

He knew that she locked the door with a silent incantation spell of her own creation to keep him out, but he couldn't for the life of himself fathom why.

He was a good wizard, a good man to her, and yet, every time he got close to her and tried to be there for her, she shut him out.

He just wanted to be close to her.

Now Hermione had disapperated to Merlin knows where…

Didn't she have any clue who had returned and was working in the same building as her now?

It wasn't safe for her out there with Draco Malfoy wandering around.

Ron swore under his breath and left the bathroom, turning off the stovetop and placing a stasis charm over the food so it wouldn't go bad, before grabbing his coat and apparating to Harry and Ginny's house.

Ron rapped on the door and was greeted by the sound of small children running and laughing, calling out that there was someone at the door.

Harry came to the door and greeted Ron with a friendly hug.

"Well, this is a surprise, what brings you here?" Harry asked, ushering his brother in law into the house and closing the door behind him.

Before Ron could answer, there was a cheer of "Uncle Ron!" and he was rushed at by three children, six-year old James, four-year old Albus (or Al, for short), and then the youngest of the Potter clan followed them, baby Lily toddling around the corner, holding onto her mother's hands to steady herself.

Ginny was beaming at the sight of her older brother and Harry scooped Lily up as she embraced him.

"Ron! What a pleasant surprise. Are you here to tell us that Penelope's gone into labor?" Ginny asked.

Ron shook his head.

"Nah, mum swears she's going to have the baby before the week's out, though. No, I'm looking for Hermione, is she here?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head.

"Sorry, mate. Haven't seen her, but she's probably working late again… you know Hermione…"

"She came back to her flat because I was making her dinner. She must've apparated from her bathroom. Haven't the foggiest why, but she's been distant lately, to say the least." Ron replied.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Ron, she's a massively successful orthopedic specialist, when she's not at her practice, she's in surgery, and when she isn't in surgery, she's sleeping. You and I both know that she accepted the chief position in the orthopedics department at St. Mungo's, so she probably got a good idea and decided to go back to St. Mungo's to tell her assistant or something, that way the night shift can implement it."

Ron sighed and cast a look in Harry's direction that told Harry that something wasn't right.

"Uh, Ginny, could you take the kids upstairs, it's almost their bedtime… I'll be up in a few minutes."

Ginny saw the look between her brother and her husband and nodded, rounding up the children and ushering them up the stairs with promises of bedtime stories if they cooperated with bath time.

When Ron and Harry were alone, Harry led Ron into the kitchen and slid the doors closed behind him.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, his tone switching to the one he used when he was on a job and doing Auror work.

"I dunno, mate. It's like she doesn't want to be around me anymore…" Ron sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, "It's positively maddening."

"Forgive me for asking, but what's been going on between the two of you?"

"Nothing! That's the problem. I go around to her flat and she wants nothing to do with me. The other night, I dropped in on her after she got out of the bath and tried to make a romantic gesture. Hermione told me that she needed to rest up because she had surgery the next day. I didn't see her again until earlier this evening when I thought I would surprise her with dinner. She locked herself in the bathroom and apparated somewhere."

Ron began pacing the floor and Harry leaned up against a countertop and watched his friend pace.

"Do you think it's because she's just feeling stressed out and needs her space?" He asked.

"I don't know why I'd stress her out… I'm a good guy, I just like spending time with her. Is that too much to ask of her? I mean we are dating…" Ron replied, shrugging.

Harry shook his head.

"With all due respect, Ron, and I say this not only as your friend but as Hermione's friend as well, you've been dating for ages now… do you think she's tired of the uncertainty of it all?"

"What's there to be uncertain about? I've never even looked at another woman… She knows I love her…"

"Then what's keeping you from proposing to her?" Harry asked.

Ron opened his mouth to reply and closed it again, realization dawning on his features.

"Do you think she wants me to propose to her?" He asked.

"Well, I don't know for sure, but Molly has been dropping hints about you two getting married for ages, she's always talking about it with Ginny, how all your brothers are married, save for Charlie, but that's because he's asexual and aromantic, so it's not it for him, you know?"

"Yeah, I know, I'm the only one in my family with an interest in being in a relationship, who is in a relationship, but isn't married. Mum's probably going crazy."

"Maybe she's not the only one going crazy about that fact. Did you ever think that maybe Hermione is trying to get away because the more she distances herself from you, the easier it will be on her to keep her from getting her hopes up about the two of you getting married? I know that we have longer lifespans than muggles do, but even I hear it from the single women around our age in my department that their biological clocks are ticking, so to speak." Harry stated, "Hermione is probably waiting on the off chance that you'll wise up and come around, but she's also bracing for the likelihood that you might never come around… you see what I'm saying?"

Ron pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Merlin, I'm an idiot… of course she's doing that."

Harry nodded.

"Now you're getting it. Don't get me wrong, Hermione is bright and a real credit to witches everywhere, but she's still a woman, and if there's one thing I've learned from being married to your sister, it's that women tend to drop hints and it's up to you to figure out what's going on."

Ron nodded and straightened up.

"Thanks mate, I'm off… I have to go and transfigure a ring…" Ron said with a smile, clapping Harry on the back, "Thanks for helping me to see sense, just, ah, keep it under your hat, don't tell anyone I'm planning on popping the question."

"I'm as silent as the grave." Harry said, crossing his heart.

They left the kitchen as Ginny came down the stairs and into the foyer.

"Well, I'm off. I'll see you around, Ginny. Good luck with training." Ron said, hugging his sister.

Ron left the house and apparated into the dark.

* * *

"Alright you lot, listen up! I've got a juicy story, one which the likes of you would die to publish…", Rita Skeeter announced with a grin, her acid green high heels clicking on the floor as she entered the bullpen at The Daily Prophet the next morning, a cup of espresso in one hand, her bag clutched tightly in the other, her violent fuchsia nails practically puncturing the paper cup.

A skinny wizard with green eyes and brown hair made eye contact with her and strode to meet her, kissing her as they met halfway.

"Ah, Rita, a pleasure as always. What bit of delicious gossip have you come across now?" He asked, looping her arm through his.

"Well, Robert, darling, something that will put your failed story about that Malfoy boy to shame."

"My wife, you tease me so…", Robert Mason replied, opening the door to his office and ushering her across the threshold.

"There is a problem though, you remember the last time I wrote anything about Granger, she kidnapped me and put me in a jar?"

"How can I forget… Thelma and I were distraught… we thought you had been killed by someone…" Robert replied, sinking into his desk chair as Rita sat down across from him.

Rita's stomach turned at the memory of the way their daughter had tearfully embraced her after she had been released from her captivity.

" _Mummy, I thought you were never coming back!"_

Even though she had been threatened to never write about Granger again and had told Thelma and Robert most of her story, including her promise to not write about Granger, she had filled up notepads with her story of months long captivity.

Thelma Bisset (nee Skeeter-Mason) had only been eight at the time. She and Robert had worked hard to provide for her while also keeping her out of the way of what they did.

Very few people knew that she and Robert had been married for so long, and even less people knew about Thelma.

When she turned ten, Thelma had been sent abroad to live with Robert's mother in the south of France and she studied at Beauxbatons because of how dangerous it had become to be in England during the War.

Robert and Rita had always known that they were unscrupulous journalists, and Thelma knew it too, and she seemed to have the same knack for it that her parents did. She had married a young French wizard that had also studied at Beauxbatons, Victor Bisset, and they worked together on new stories. He was her photographer, she his journalist.

Quite the impressive duo, both tough as nails.

"Where is Thelma, anyway?", Rita asked, crossing her legs.

"She and Victor are out interviewing some useless idiot from St. Mungo's, Norrington or something like that…"

"So, they're covering the reform?"

"Yes. Apparently, things are going quite well… she also managed to interview some put off little junior Healer, Swan, his name was, said that _Doctor_ Malfoy had torn him a new arsehole and demoted him to doing grunt work without the use of magic."

"Who does he think he is?" Rita asked, throwing up her hands, "Doesn't he remember how close he was to being sent to Azkaban along with his conniving Death Eater father?"

"I think a better question to ask is if he realizes how many people were pissed off and still are that he didn't go to prison?" Robert muttered, tapping the side of his teacup with his wand, instantly reheating the contents.

"True enough, but that's what makes my news so enthralling." Rita lowered her voice.

Robert arched his eyebrow and sipped his tea.

"I was working on a follow-up of your story on Draco Malfoy today, decided to follow him around. I managed to hitch a ride on his briefcase into the hospital, was dropped unceremoniously onto the floor when a badly injured man was brought in, watched the treatment from afar, when I notice who else is there… my old friend, Hermione Granger…"

"What's she doing there?" Robert asked.

"She's the head of orthopedics at Mungo's now…"

"And Draco is the new head of critical care…"

"They've already butted heads… I feared being discovered after that, so I made myself scarce and decided to go write down my findings in this nice little café named Savoy's… I must've been at it for a few hours, because a lot of people in scrubs began coming in, no doubt for lunch. Then I spot Draco Malfoy entering the café. Then Hermione Granger comes in a moment later. I wrap up what I was doing and go to the loo, shift into the beetle, and spy on them…"

"What did they say?" Robert asked, clearly intrigued, "You wouldn't think that such rivals would share a meal together?"

"Of course not, that's why I was so inclined to spy on them. They talked rather amicably for the duration of their lunch hour, chatted about this and that, and then Draco apologized to her for being a bully to her while they were in school. Draco isn't living at the manor either, he's living in Holland Park. Apparently, he's been in Baltimore, over in the United States, for the past twelve years…"

"Sounds like you don't have much of a story here, love…"

Rita tutted at her husband.

"My dear, I am just getting to the good part…" she said, "I waited in the lobby for Draco to show up and leave for the day, and I managed to land on his coattail and hang on as he apparated to his flat. Hid in a corner as he showered and changed, respected his privacy on that front… and when he began making dinner, he realized he forgot to get something, diced canned tomatoes, I think, so I hung onto the roof of his car as he went to the store and stayed there as he drove back to his home, now, at this point in time, I'm planning on flying off and calling it a waste of time, but then, who do we see walking along, looking rather distraught, with a bottle of wine in her hand? It's Hermione Granger."

"What was she doing in Holland Park? She doesn't live anywhere near there…" Robert asked.

"I'm getting to that! If you would just let me finish!"

Robert put up his hands in surrender.

"Anyway, he pulled over and asked her if she was okay, she dodged the question, said something about toasting to day one, and he asked her to get in, which she did. I managed to crawl in the door before she closed it. She's having trouble with Ron Weasley."

"Ugh, the biggest bloody will-they-won't-they of the decade…"

"Right, well, apparently there's trouble in paradise and the relationship is on the rocks for real this time. According to Granger, Weasley is not physically hurting her, which, much as I dislike her, makes me feel relieved, but he's apparently clingy as all hell and she needed to escape him and didn't know who to turn to, so she turns to Draco Malfoy under the guise of a professional meeting."

"Now we're getting somewhere… but it really could have been strictly professional… Right?"

Rita laughed.

"Robert, you didn't see the look on her face, or the one on his… there's something there that isn't quite as purely professional as it all seems, but Merlin, what a blow to Ron Weasley… He was one of the main people who wanted Draco to go to prison and he was the most upset when he was released… His girlfriend is running from his arms and right into the arms of his enemy…"

"Oh, now I see…"

"We've got the chance to deliver a crushing blow to Granger, Weasley, and Malfoy, all at the same time… screw two birds with one stone, we're going for three here!"

Robert nodded.

"Please tell me you followed them into the flat?" He asked.

"I went to fly away, but I reversed course and crawled under a crack in the front door…"

"What did they talk about?"

Rita's lips pulled up into a wicked grin.

"Just you wait…"

* * *

 _Hours Earlier…_

"Thank you again for the dinner… it was delicious…", Hermione said as she helped Draco clear the table, taking a sip from her wine glass, feeling the gentle tingle of a red wine buzz beginning to nip at her heels.

"Again, it's no problem at all." Draco replied, "So, what did you want to talk about, anyway?"

Hermione opened her purse and reached around until her hand closed around the files she was looking for, lifting them out and placing them on the table.

"Personnel files?" He asked and Hermione nodded.

"Got them from Wanda, my assistant… apparently all heads of department got them… I'm trying to figure out schedules and placements…"

"Yeah, me too…" He replied, pulling his own personnel files from his briefcase, tapping them with his wand to put a pink CC for Critical Care on every folder and document in the stack. He didn't want his personnel getting mixed up with Hermione's.

"In all honesty, you do have more experience forming teams, after all, you were at Hopkins and Shock-Trauma. I was planning on giving this to you on Friday so that I could get a second set of eyes on it, see if you see anything that I might have overlooked…"

Draco sipped his wine and sat diagonally from her at the square table as she tapped her files with her wand and put a sea foam green O on her folders and documents.

"Well, I appreciate the acquiescence."

"Acquiescence?"

"That I have more experience than you do…" Draco said, smirking as Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed quietly.

"I'm not as prideful as I was back in school… nor are you…" She said.

"I pride myself on that." Draco said, unable to keep the smirk off his face.

"Shut it… let's focus on this…"

They worked seamlessly together on the placements.

"I think you got the better deal here…" Hermione muttered, "This Gina Wick has herself together…"

"Couldn't have asked for a better assistant… I plan on training her as a surgical nurse. She's a regular nurse right now, but I need someone who is always thinking several steps ahead of everyone if I want this to go smoothly." Draco replied.

"I still need to address my radiology techs."

"We have some overlap there… lets focus on them for a bit. I technically have my own radiology techs, but I'm fairly certain they rotate in and out with your department, so that everyone gets a chance to work in a critical care environment, and if they aren't being rotated in and out, then that should start happening…"

Hermione nodded.

"Right, just in case we have an influx. I'll put my nurses on a rotating schedule as well. If something happens, God forbid, we'll need as many personnel as possible in the ER who know what they're meant to do."

"Hmm. I'm going to make rotations mandatory in my department for any personnel who didn't go to medical or nursing school, just so they can better determine the areas they're good at."

"That's a good idea, I think I'll join you on that one… lets see if we can try and sway the other departments…"

"We should rotate them per pay period, every two weeks… that's enough to teach a general overview of nursing duties for each specialty, right?" Draco asked, "I think it sounds reasonable…"

"Unless, of course, there aren't enough professionals to a department that have been to medical school… for example, I think I heard that Hematology and Anticoagulation don't have a lot of people there that actually went to med school or nursing school… Perhaps organize the departments into groups, with the top tier having the least personnel with actual degrees and then working our way down from there to the largest departments."

"Have the largest departments tag their professionals with experience in the top tier departments and have them rotate to the top tier while the top tier rotates down to a lower tier for training… does that make sense, or has my jet lag caught up with me and is making me say nonsense?" Draco asked.

Hermione downed the rest of her wine.

"Nope. Makes sense to me… we're just going to have to work out a way to explain it in simpler terms for the ones who aren't on our level of intellect…"

"True…" Hermione agreed.

She tapped her wand to the stack of files and they all went into their proper places, her files separating themselves from his.

"That's all I can manage to do for now, I'm afraid, my brain is frazzled…" She said and Draco agreed, rising from the table and sitting down on the sofa before gesturing to the loveseat across the coffee table from him.

"Thanks."

"My pleasure."

They sat in silence before Draco cleared his throat.

"So, I feel like we've made strides as professionals, but I-I would like to be friends as well… if that's okay…" He said.

"I'm fine with that… you see, as much as I love my friends and their children, there aren't too many single people in the magical community right now that I can be friends with. People our age are still a bit, well, starstruck, when they meet me… It feels like I'm trapped, almost…" Hermione explained.

"Believe it or not, I understand that feeling…"

"You do?"

Draco nodded and finished his wine.

"Yeah. All my friends from school are either married, living abroad, dead, or in Azkaban. Or they want to have nothing to do with me because I testified against one of their family members for something they did in the War."

"So, Draco Malfoy has become a blood traitor?"

He rolled his silver-grey eyes and let out a short huff.

"Yeah, you could say that… what can I say, muggles have some pretty good ideas… I'll admit to being as scared as Swan when I was told that I couldn't use magic in the muggle world… I learned how to survive without it. Turns out, you get a better, deeper feeling of satisfaction when you do things yourself as opposed to relying on magic for everything…"

Hermione nodded.

"It's funny because when I came to Hogwarts and learned I was a witch when I was ten from the ministry official, I felt such a deep-rooted satisfaction in being able to do things with magic… I didn't see it as the easy way out of hard work, rather a way to harness your own power and use it for yourself… you are working, just a bit more passively…"

"So, your experience was the exact opposite… huh… that's interesting…" he replied, "But back to the feeling of isolation, I feel trapped by being a blood traitor while also being a former Death Eater, not that I had any choice in the matter, really… and, let me guess, you feel isolated because everyone has such high hopes for the golden girl, the brightest witch of our age, that those terms and such place you up on a pedestal so high that you can't possibly come down and relate to anyone else…"

"Close, but I also don't have any muggle friends either, to my neighbors, I'm just Dr. Granger, and if someone knew me during my pre-Hogwarts years, then they would know me as 'That freak Hermione who dropped out when she was 11 to go to some private boarding school in Scotland and never spoke to any of us ever again'. My parents are dead and I have no siblings or other relatives that I'm close to, so there is that as well. But, yes, that whole golden trio thing does have an impact on who I meet. Makes it hard to have real friends."

"Ah, I see… fake friends are really something else, aren't they?"

"No kidding."

"I also feel like there's expectations now… and I don't mean professionally. I was doing my rounds earlier and I had so many patients and colleagues side-eyeing me, almost like they were just waiting for the second I'd turn on them and hex them into oblivion or something like that… like they know what I come from, they know I escaped a life in Azkaban, and most aren't too pleased about this, even if it has been twelve years."

"Ooh, don't get me started on expectations!" Hermione exclaimed, the red wine really starting to kick in, and she covered her mouth, surprised at her own outburst.

"Well, go on then, you clearly know what I'm on about here…" Draco said, unbothered by her exclamation.

"Everyone expects me to marry Ron Weasley… I mean, we've been on and off for the past twelve years and it's really exhausting to try and date anyone else when he has almost a claim over me… Like everyone else is afraid to come near me because I belong to Ron… but I don't belong to anyone but myself… I had to move the last time I broke up with him because the hate mail was so overwhelming…" Hermione replied, rising and refilling her wine glass before pouring the last of it into Draco's glass, which he raised to her in thanks before taking a sip of it.

"So, you don't like being in a relationship with Ron?"

Hermione sat back down and shook her head, sipping her wine.

"Ten points to Slytherin there. We're friends, and we're better off as friends, not as lovers… For fuck's sake, I am not sixteen anymore, I've grown up and I need someone who can match my ambition and drive and that isn't Ron Weasley."

"How so, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, Ron is invested in the joke shop, but the last time he and George really had a lot of motivation was after George and Angelina got married and decided to move to Hogsmeade village and open a new location where Zonko's used to be. Since he owns the one in Diagon Alley now, he's been busy with that… George is in charge of new products, but he's been busy with little Fred, so things have taken a backseat to parenthood. Ron hasn't had an idea for a new product in ages…" Hermione took another sip of wine and continued.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot, his mother, Molly Weasley… nice woman, but she's a pain in my arse. Always dropping hints to Ron about wanting more grandchildren and all but telling him that he should hurry up and propose to me or something… I don't want to marry him… but I also don't want to alienate myself from the Weasley family in the process. They're good people, they helped me out during the War, especially after I had to obliviate my parents so that the Death Eaters wouldn't be able to torture them for information…"

Draco cast his eyes downward. He already knew what had happened to her parents.

"Augustus Rookwood got to them anyway and tortured them to death, even though they didn't know anything…" She said, taking a swig from her glass.

"That's a lot to take in… I remember the hate mail you got in fourth year because Rita Skeeter wrote something about you two-timing between Viktor Krum and Harry Potter… everyone knew it was bullshit…" Draco replied.

"Yeah, didn't stop Molly Weasley from sending me a harshly worded letter about it… Apparently, Ron got a letter from her in which I was referred to as a 'scarlet woman'… every time I've broken it off with Ron, she's become passive aggressive about me…"

"Scarlet woman?" Draco said, laughing at the phrase, "That's a Biblical phrase, apparently, its original usage was about the alleged whore of Babylon… trust me, you're nowhere relatively close to that…"

"I know that… but I'm not out here cheating on him, I just wish that we would break up and stay friends."

"So, let me see if I have this right. You don't want to be in a relationship with Ron. You don't want to marry him or have his children…"

"I never mentioned children, but no, I wouldn't."

"Apologies, I only assumed that you didn't want to because of Molly hinting at wanting more grandchildren… and then there's Molly Weasley, decent woman, but you feel like she's pressuring you into being with Ron now?"

Hermione nodded.

"And Ron hasn't hurt you physically, correct… this is a safe space and I'm not going to say a word of this to anyone unless he has, in fact, hurt you. Even then, it would only be so that I could alert the proper authorities. He has never coerced you into performing any sexual acts… I'm only asking because when I was just an emergency nurse, I would help forensic nurses and professionals during rape kits and domestic abuse cases, so I have a bit of experience with asking these questions."

"I mean, he's always been one to be suggestive, but if I would tell him no, he would stop immediately."

"Alright then, has he ever been emotionally, verbally, or mentally abusive?"

"Well, he does have a penchant for turning up at my flat uninvited, like tonight, he tried to surprise me by making dinner, Monday night, he scared me by showing up uninvited as well… one time after I broke up with him, he came into my flat and damn near kicked my bedroom door down, demanding an explanation from me… I actually had to create a complicated locking and securing charm that was nonverbal, just so he couldn't figure out a reversal charm. I made it to keep him out specifically…"

"That's screwed up… at the very least, it's breaking and entering."

"He also gives me these kicked puppy dog eyes whenever I tell him to give me some space. That's just him being annoying and clingy, nothing illegal there. I mean, I'm working all the time just so that I can use 'I'm busy' or 'I'm tired' as excuses to avoid him… It isn't the best option, but it works… I'm just glad that he's a bit daft and hasn't picked up on his mother's hints yet…"

"Jesus, Granger, sounds like you should just drop him like a bad habit before the stress of dealing with him drops you."

"I'm trying to, but I don't want to hurt anyone in the process…" Hermione sighed, nursing her wine.

She laughed a bit then, short and in disbelief.

"What?" Draco asked, cocking his head to the side, observing the witch sitting across the table from him.

"If someone would have told me back when I was fourteen that I would be friends with Draco Malfoy now, then I would have called them a liar."

"If someone would have told me at age fourteen that I would be friends with Hermione Granger, I would have told my father about it and then their entire family would have received death threats…"

"Christ, that's morbid…"

"I hate my father…" Draco muttered after a long pause.

"I hate what he did to me and my mum… I hate that he raised me with such flawed world views… I hate that he put me in such a position for me to be used by Voldemort… I was still fifteen, a child, when I got the Mark…"

"I'm sorry."

"It isn't your fault, I blame him. I don't blame my mum, she tried her best to keep me out of all that, but when Voldemort commanded you to do something, you either did it or you died. It was much worse for the women who disobeyed… they were raped and then killed or sold into sex trafficking rings by the Snatchers… I was able to sit down with a counselor from MACUSA and speak to them on this, but the trauma is still with me, and it always will be…"

Hermione just sat in silence, unsure of what to say.

"Sometimes I think I deserve to be in Azkaban because I was complicit when it came to most of the things that the Death Eaters did or made me do… Merlin, I stood there and _watched_ and didn't do a damn thing when Bellatrix carved up your arm…"

Hermione finished her wine and set the glass on the coffee table, crossing the room to sit next to Draco, professionalism be damned, he had seen some shit and hadn't been able to tell anyone about it because there hadn't been anyone to tell.

Draco looked at her and downed his wine.

Hermione placed her hand on his arm in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

"Draco, what were you going to do? Kill someone on Voldemort's side? Tell the ministry? You aren't a murderer, and we didn't have a ministry at that time…If you had done either of those things, can you imagine what they would have done to you? You proved yourself during the final battle. If it hadn't been for you, Harry would have really died and Voldemort would have won. You turned the tides, so did your mother. She lied about Harry being dead just so she could get to you, and it paid off in the end."

Draco nodded.

"Besides, if you had acted on Voldemort's orders and killed Dumbledore, you would have been killed by Voldemort, just so he could be the master of the Elder Wand. If you had acted out and tried to be a hero when Voldemort and the Death Eaters were living in the manor, you would have died. But you lived and did something with the rest of your life… you've saved more lives as a doctor than you've taken or been held accountable for ruining as a Death Eater, remember that."

"I will… thank you… Just make sure that you remember that you are your own person and you define your future. Being selfish is okay when it comes to living by your own terms… I mean, would you rather do something that makes you permanently miserable while everyone else is satisfied for a brief time, or would you rather be a happier person for as long as you live, even if it meant disappointing some people for a little while? Disappointment isn't an eternal feeling."

"I think I'd rather be selfish."

"Glad to hear it."

Hermione and Draco sat in silence for a while until Hermione looked at her watch and groaned.

"What's the matter?"

"I have surgery tomorrow and I need to sleep this buzz off, but I don't want to go back to my apartment and risk running into Ron…"

"Just take the guest bedroom… or, if you need anything from your place, we could apparate there together and I could stand guard while you grab your stuff."

"I need to feed Crookshanks, grab my briefcase with the lineup for tomorrow's procedures, and grab my surgical scrubs."

"Apparating it is, then…" Draco said and stood up, holding out his arm to Hermione, "Lead on, Macduff."

"You've never read _Pride and Prejudice_ but you can misquote _Macbeth_?" Hermione muttered as she stood up.

"I have some talents, you know…" Draco said, making Hermione roll her eyes at him.

They apparated into Hermione's bedroom with a pop and Hermione immediately began summoning things to her nonverbally, holding open her purse as they flew into the enchanted bag with surprising speed.

"Hermione? Is that you?" Came the voice of Ron Weasley, followed by heavy footsteps down the hall towards her bedroom.

" _Hide in the closet! Now!"_ Hermione mouthed to Draco, and he obeyed, slipping into the curtained-off closet, peering out through a tiny hole in the material as Hermione snapped her purse shut and Ron entered the room.

"There you are! I was worried sick! Where did you go?" He asked, embracing her, catching the smell of men's cologne on her skin and alcohol on her breath before stepping back and narrowing his eyes at her.

"You smell like cologne and red wine…" he murmured, his tone darkening, "Where have you been?"

"Ron, I can explain. I went to a pub… the ladies' toilet was out of order, so I asked the bartender if I could use the staff bathroom instead, and he let me, but the last person that used it probably sprayed some cologne in there…" Hermione lied flawlessly.

"You aren't lying to me, are you?"

"Why would I lie?"

"You seemed in an awful rush to be gone from here, so much so that you locked the door and apparated off to a pub? I fixed dinner for you… why would you run out like that?"

"I needed some space…"

"So, you went to a crowded pub to find that space? I find that hard to believe. However, I do believe you. It's okay to go out every now and then, just give me a bit of a warning before you take off, it isn't safe out there… are you even aware of who just came back to England?" Ron asked.

"No? Who came back?"

"Draco bloody Malfoy… apparently you both work at St. Mungo's too, he was spotted by a reporter from The Daily Prophet yesterday while buying some robes and such in Diagon Alley, and to think, he must've passed the shop while I was there! I wish I would've seen him, given him a solid punch in the nose to rival that one you gave him back in third year!"

Draco held his breath and went to shift from one foot to another, the floorboard creaking below his feet as he did.

Ron's head whipped towards the closet and Draco covered his mouth to stifle his breathing, praying that he didn't smell of cologne or red wine as well.

"What was that?"

"What was what? The floorboard? Ron, it's cold outside, the wood expands and contracts with the temperature… that's probably all you heard."

Ron turned back to face Hermione and then squinted at something on her jumper.

"What is this?" He asked, pulling a long, silver-blonde hair off of her sleeve.

"A gray hair? I probably picked it up at the bar… either that or it could be mine, I am turning thirty soon… maybe I'm starting to turn grey…"

"Hmph." Ron grunted.

"Why are you still here?" Hermione asked, "I would have thought you'd be gone now. Besides, it's late and I have surgery tomorrow. I need my rest."

"You went out for a drink, Hermione, you're clearly not exhausted enough for that, so why are you so tired whenever I come around?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but Ron kept talking.

"Is it because we've been together for so long and I've not made any promises to you about settling down? Is that it?"

"Ron, no…"

Draco tensed behind the curtain as he watched the scene unfold.

" _Oh fuck, he's really going there…"_ Draco thought, shaking his head minutely, _"Poor bastard's about to shoot himself in the foot…"_

"Well, I'm sorry that I've been so blind to your needs, but I promise you that all that will change. Starting now."

The redhead reached into his pocket and pulled out a box and began to get down onto one knee.

"I had meant to do this over wine and roses and a nice dinner, but I suppose this is good enough, yeah?"

Hermione went red in the face and tried to pull the surly redhead up by his shoulders while muttering under her breath.

"No. No, no, no…" Hermione began to say as he went onto one knee, "Ron, stop, I need to tell you something…"

"Hermione Jean Granger, will you marry me?" Ron interrupted, popping the ring box open.

"Ron…you blithering idiot… I'm trying to break up with you!" Hermione yelled over his proposal.

Draco inhaled sharply and got a mouthful of dust from the curtain and had to swallow thickly a few times to keep himself from coughing.

Ron's face went slack.

"Wait… What did you say?" He asked.

Hermione slumped down on the edge of her window seat and scrubbed a hand over her eyes.

"I said, I'm trying to break up with you."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not."

"No, you're having me on, aren't you?"

Hermione shook her head.

"No, Ron. We're over. If you thought that I was happy enough in this relationship for you to propose to me, then we clearly have communication issues." Hermione replied.

"But, I-I'm sure we can see someone, a therapist or counselor, about that, right? Before we get married, we'll sort that out?" Ron asked, dumbfounded.

"No, Ron… we're not seeing a therapist, and we're not getting married. Now could you please leave?"

"Hang on, hang on, you can't just do that… dump me, break my heart, and throw me out into the street… I thought we were friends?"

"That's debatable. Right now, I want you out of my home, I have surgery tomorrow and I need to sleep. Please leave." Hermione stated, tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to fall.

"Hermione… don't do this to me… please, think of all we've been through… I love you… don't you love me too?"

The tears fell then as Ron got to his feet.

Hermione shook her head and Draco's arms ached to hold her, to let her know that she wasn't facing this alone.

The thought that it was wrong to have those feelings about your colleague flitted through his head. Perhaps it was right, but she was hurting and he was a healer, through and through.

"You don't love me?" Ron asked, his voice catching, "Did you ever?"

"Once, thirteen years ago… we're too different now… we grew up, things changed, _we changed_." Hermione replied, wiping the tears away, "Now I won't ask you again. Please. Leave."

Ron walked out of the room without a word and slammed the door to her flat behind him, rattling the walls.

Hermione started crying harder then, great sobs wracking her petite form as she slid down the wall and onto the floor.

Draco slowly moved from his hiding spot, crossing the room tentatively and taking a seat on the floor beside her.

He was unsure of what to do, so he just sat there in silence as Hermione cried.

"I-I'm sorry…" He spoke slowly, carefully measuring his words and the tone of his voice.

Hermione didn't speak, she threw her arms around his chest and cried into him.

He was taken aback by her sudden actions and then slowly brought his arms around her in an embrace.

"Do you want me to leave?"

Her fingers curled into his shirt and she shook her head.

"No. Stay." Came her muffled response.

So, stay he did.

He stayed with her all night long, holding her for hours until her crying turned to steady breathing as she fell asleep.

Draco shifted slowly and levitated her onto her bed, pulling back her covers and situating her under them, removing her shoes as he went.

He left her bedroom and summoned the cat food to him, feeding Crookshanks and giving the ginger cat a scratch behind the ears before making his way back to the bedroom and settling into the window seat to keep watch over her.

He didn't sleep at all.

When the first tendrils of sunlight began to turn the sky hues of violet and pink, he acknowledged them and admired their beauty.

He was drawn back to the present when Hermione stirred and sat up in bed.

"You're still here."

"You asked me to stay."

Hermione bit her lip before sighing and getting up.

She crossed the room in a few strides and evaluated his posture and the dark circles beneath his eyes.

He hadn't slept.

She reached out and brushed a tendril of his white-blonde hair back from his face and he leaned into her gentle touch, letting his eyes close in a feeling of peace.

Hermione sat down facing him in the window seat and leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek.

He felt her lips on the side of his face and opened his eyes to find her deep brown eyes staring back at him.

His eyes fell to her lips and back to her eyes.

Neither of them will recall who made the first move that ended in them kissing each other, but it was bliss, and they both found themselves holding on a little too tightly and breaking apart breathless.

"I'm not sorry I did that…" Draco began, his whisper caressing her lips in a soft exhalation.

"Neither am I…" Hermione murmured, "Thank you for staying with me."

Draco held her closer.

"This is going to look bad…" Draco sighed.

"Most likely."

"Well, at least nobody knows."

Hermione chuckled a bit.

"This is true."

* * *

"…They had no idea that I was there and saw the whole thing!" Rita exclaimed, "And the truly creepy and devastating thing was that when I crawled out of the window and flew away, Ron Weasley was standing in the street, looking up at her window, and watching her snog Malfoy. Oh, the look on that dumb sod's face was worth it!"

"Good Lord, Rita, you're like a bulldog…" Robert replied, grinning and laughing as he kissed his wife on the lips, "If we hurry, we'll be able to make the front page of tomorrow's morning edition!"

"I'm going to send Victor and Thelma over to St. Mungo's to get some shots of Granger and Malfoy to go with the story, and we'll be golden!" Rita said, "It'll be a collaborative exclusive, guaranteed to get everyone talking!"

"My dear, this could be the prelude to disaster if Hermione finds out it was you…"

"And risk losing her practice, license, the entire medical reform, and the respect of the entire wizarding community? I think not." Rita said with a smirk, "Oh, and make sure that a few copies of tomorrow's morning edition makes it into the reading basket in the day room at Azkaban… I'm sure Lucius Malfoy will be _overjoyed_ by his prodigal, pureblooded son's return…"

* * *

Dun, Dun, Dun!

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	6. Chapter 6

Hermione sighed as she let herself relax into Draco's strong, steady arms, his fingertips tracing along her spine, never straying from the chaste safety of the middle of her back.

She couldn't believe that she had kissed him.

Or that he had kissed her.

She didn't know who had made the first move, but it had released trapped emotions from within her, the pain of having to hurt Ron simply to get her point across went from being almost too much to bear and had gradually faded into a dull ache.

Draco's gentle touch was a balm to her battered nerves, so she allowed herself to be soothed.

It was quite the strange situation they had gotten themselves into, and she tried to stamp out the feelings of uncertainty that had begun to coil around her ribcage like ivy, squeezing the life force from her very soul.

She didn't know it then, but Draco was unsure of himself as well.

He had never been in this position. He had never been more vulnerable in most of his adult life than he was now.

This was Hermione Granger, after all.

Before yesterday morning's events, they hadn't even known about each other.

Now, here they were, after 12 years of being apart (and prior to that, being known as enemies to each other), and they were possibly romantically involved?

Draco shook his head.

"I'm sorry…"

"I thought you weren't sorry for the kiss?" Hermione murmured, drawing back from his embrace.

"And I'm not… I'm just sorry to rush things… I shouldn't have kissed you. I mean, I don't regret it, but I do regret acting upon these raw feelings. You only just broke up with Ron hours ago and it's only been a day since we've come back into each other's lives, in a much different way than when we parted, I might add…"

Hermione sat back and Draco's hands slid down her arms to hold her hands tenderly in his own.

She nodded.

"I understand. Perhaps things are moving far too quickly… In your defense, I believe I initiated the kiss…"

Draco rolled his eyes.

"No matter who made the first move, we both kissed back."

"True."

"Why did you do it? Why'd you kiss me back?" Draco asked, his long hair falling down and framing his face, the slight waves to it reflecting the early morning sun.

Hermione tossed her head to the side and blew an errant strand of her hair back from her face in a way that Draco found very endearing.

"Well, for starters… I like you. You're similar to me. You understand what we go through. We have similar lifestyles… If I were to come across you in a breakroom at work and you looked exhausted beyond wits and were pouring a five-hour energy potion into a cup of coffee, I'd ask if you had new residents in training, because I can relate to that."

Draco snorted.

"Guilty as charged, although I don't think I've ever been that tired, not even working around the clock during the aftermath of 9/11…" He stated, shrugging slightly.

Hermione gasped and her hands went rigid in his.

"I didn't know you were there for that…" She whispered, her eyebrows knitting together in concern.

"What? Oh…" Draco nodded, his grey eyes looking up at the dream catcher Hermione had hanging above them, "Yeah…I was… I was there at the World Trade Center when the second plane hit… I remember running with the crowds when they came crashing down… the people that decided jumping was better than whatever horrors they were facing up above…"

He swallowed thickly, feeling the stinging in his sinuses that precluded tears and closed his eyes, those tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he saw the horrors of that day replaying across the inside of his eyelids. He flinched as the sound of the body making contact with the glass ceiling of the lobby echoed in his head.

He still wore earplugs when he was taking off and landing in an airplane.

The thunder of turbines was freeing and terrifying to him at the same time and the deep, groaning sounds that steel made when it buckled and fell through would haunt him forever.

He felt her hands on his face, thumbs wiping his tears aside before her arms wound around his broad shoulders, pulling him into her body.

"I'm here. I'm right here…" she reassured softly, soothing him.

9/11 had been one of the things that still kept him up at night.

Not even Voldemort scared him as much as that day did, and that was saying something.

He inhaled shakily and placed his chin on top of her shoulder, careful not to hurt her by pressing his sharp chin against her.

"I'm sorry… it isn't right for me to cry…" He muttered.

" _Boys don't cry!"_ came the cold, commanding voice of Lucius Malfoy, echoing unbidden throughout his head.

Hermione tutted at him softly and pushed his shoulders back, looking into his eyes, red-rimmed and teary, his face flushing with emotion.

For a split second, she saw him, a terrified younger man, running through the crowds and the clouds of dust, then she saw him as a teenager, shaking and fearful as Voldemort announced that Harry Potter was dead.

He had been put through the wringer and had been dealt a rather difficult hand in this life, even with the opulence of his upbringing, but here he was anyway; living and breathing and surviving.

"Oh, it is very human to cry… men do it all the time… whether in pain or relief or joy…" Hermione reassured him, "Trust me… I've drained synovial fluid from enough inflamed joints and administered enough cortisone injections to know that men cry and I very nearly decided to go into obstetrics when I assisted in my first delivery as a junior doctor going through specialty rotations… the father cried… it was messy, but beautiful… I know for a fact that you've told families enough good and bad news in your life to see men cry… There is no shame in it at all…"

Draco nodded.

"You're right."

Hermione smiled softly.

"I find I generally am…"

Draco smirked at her and rolled his eyes.

"Shut it…"

They sat in easy silence for the next few minutes until Hermione spoke up.

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kiss me back. Why did you do it?"

Draco shrugged.

"Well, I do like you. I enjoy the comfortable ease and pleasure of being in your company, and I honestly think that, if things had been different between us, if the circumstances of my upbringing and fate had been kinder, this could have been us years earlier, possibly in school…"

"Us…" Hermione breathed and nodded, "I kind of like that..."

"Yeah…" Draco replied sitting back against the pillows in her window seat.

Hermione looked slightly panicked.

"Is it too soon? If it's unprofessional or if we're moving too quickly, I understand completely…"

"I would say things are moving at a rather brisk pace… I mean, I know this breakup must've been a long time coming, but I still don't really like the thought of being a rebound of sorts."

"Then you aren't."

"Then what am I, exactly?" Draco asked, "I don't mean to pry or pressure you, but I am a man who prefers to have everything labeled and sorted out in life…"

"I understand… I just don't think there's a term for this that hasn't been sullied by popular societal conventions… and then there are terms that wouldn't apply to us at all…"

Draco nodded.

"I understand."

"Good… We'll find that term which suits us in due time, for now, I think its best that we get some breakfast."

"Right, you have surgery today… you're not going to be late for that, are you?" Draco asked.

Hermione looked at her alarm clock and shook her head.

"My first surgery isn't scheduled to arrive at hospital until ten. I have a good surgical team, so all I really have to do is show up, open the incision, replace the hip, and then go about my business… I have some time."

Draco smiled slightly, his fingertips brushed down her forearms, feeling the scarred slur that his aunt had put on Hermione. He felt sadness arc through his body at that memory.

"Wish my surgeries went that smoothly." He remarked.

"Well, one rarely schedules traumatic events… you just learned how to work and think on your feet, which is a talent that few doctors seem to have these days."

"You possess that talent."

"I think that the War had something to do with that…"

Hermione wished that she could swallow her words. Why did she have to bring up the bloody War, of all things?

Draco noticed the look on her face, one of regret, and he knew why.

"Don't feel bad for bringing up the War… it was the thing that defined our generation. While I wished that it never happened, I have to admit that those of us who survived were changed, some for the better, by those experiences… I'm living proof of that."

Hermione nodded, her own fingertips trailing down his arm absentmindedly.

"What did you do for fun?"

"Pardon?"

"Fun… what did you do for fun back in the United States?" Hermione asked, "I'm trying to learn more about you and avoid talking about the War."

"Oh, well, I have a motorcycle, I really enjoyed taking that out on days when the weather was nice. I did some traveling in the US, went to some of the national parks out west, like Yosemite. For all the hype that Yosemite gets, I actually found that Olympic National Park was more beautiful… It reminded me of home, England, that is… Assateague Island is rather beautiful as well, and it's much closer to Baltimore than a place that nice truly has a right to be, does that make sense? I actually camped there for a few days during the summer back in 2008, the ponies are what makes beach camping there interesting."

"Ponies?"

Draco nodded.

"Wild ponies are native to the island and they just sort of roam around. If you're visiting, they really won't bother you that much, but it is pretty crazy to come out of your tent in the morning and find a pony grazing in your campsite, completely unbothered by your presence there."

"That is pretty crazy."

"Uh, I also liked going to museums and historic sites…"

"Same here… I had the opportunity to do some traveling abroad in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic and I greatly enjoyed visiting all the old churches and cathedrals… I went to Italy and there are churches with bones in them in Florence… it's very bizarre…"

"There is one place I've always wanted to go that I didn't get to go and visit while I was in the States; Mexico and South America… There's rumored to be so many species of magical creatures living in the Amazon rainforest."

"I never took you for someone who enjoyed magical creatures."

Draco let out a short huff of self-depreciating laughter.

"I couldn't let my classmates know that I enjoyed the course in school because my father probably would have beaten me for it when I went home for winter or spring holiday, just because he didn't like the thought of Hagrid teaching the course… You've got no idea how much my cruel nature was influenced by self-preservation, and there were snitches _everywhere_ in Slytherin house…"

Draco's eyes took on a faraway look as he turned his head and gazed out of the window into the rising sun. Hermione sighed, placing a hand beneath his chin and turning his face back towards her.

"Hey, now… none of that…"

A soft smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he was about to say something in response when his stomach decided to growl quite loudly.

"Pardon me."

"It's alright… I s'pose it's time for breakfast then?" Hermione replied, smiling gently and rising to her feet, holding out her hand to Draco.

He took her hand and stood up fully, gasping as his joints popped and cracked.

"Christ, I feel like a shambling corpse… I'm only 30…" he muttered, and Hermione chuckled.

"I'll put the tea on… do you take yours with milk and sugar?"

"Yeah, just a bit of sugar, barely half a teaspoon." Draco replied as they left her room and ventured out into the hall.

Draco peered into the spare bedroom as he passed it and saw her office, impeccably immaculate, but the thing that surprised him the most was the hanging rack on one wall with five guitars hanging off of it and the amp and pedal array beneath the rack.

He had no idea that Hermione was musically inclined.

He followed her into the living room and she waved her wand at the wall near the door and all the framed pictures on the wall straightened themselves, having been knocked askew the night before by Ron's hasty departure. She pointed her wand again at the food items that Ron had left on the stove and vanished the food from within the pots and pans before they flew over and began washing themselves out in her sink.

Draco took a moment to look around the place and wasn't surprised when he saw most of the amenities that muggle households possessed, as well as a select few that were common finds in magical households.

She had a TV in a console on the wall, surrounded by book shelves and cabinets that housed vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, and DVDs on one side and an all in one record, cassette, and CD player unit on the other.

The pictures on the wall were of her mother and father, but he noticed with a sinking sensation, that in many of the pictures, there were spaces. An empty high chair here, her parents smiling at him with a blank space between them there. It was living proof of her obliviating charm, how it had been powerful enough to wipe her very presence from photographs.

Draco tore his eyes away from them, not wanting to be reminded of his role in all of that.

The room was cozy with her sofa in the middle, facing the TV with a coffee table and there was an alcove in the corner with a cozy chair in it for reading, although Crookshanks was currently snoozing in it.

Draco turned his attention towards the kitchen and noticed the more magical aspects of her home. There was a fireplace on one side of the room with a Floo powder jar on the wall next to it, a cauldron sat on the floor next to her hearth along with a secretary desk that held magical texts as well as cookbooks. Her balcony was perpendicular to the fireplace and there was a cat perch and a small herb garden on the windowsill. There wasn't a dining room, rather a wooden table in the middle of the kitchen with chairs around it.

He had never envisioned how Hermione's home would be set up, but looking at it now, he had to say that this place felt like her; friendly, warm, and inviting.

"Oh, damn it all… I'm out of tea…" She muttered, "Would you mind coffee instead?"

"Not at all. I drink it the same way as my tea, milk with a little sugar, just to take some of the bite out of the flavor…" He trailed off before speaking again, "I didn't know you played the guitar…"

Hermione nodded.

"I picked it up after Hogwarts. They required an arts and humanities credit in my first semester, so I took an introductory course for the guitar, and I found that I was both quite good at it and that I really enjoyed it just because it helped me refocus my mind on other things instead of the War… my therapist said it was good for me to have a hobby, so I stuck with it." Hermione replied.

Draco nodded.

"That's as good a reason as any… If it isn't too forward of me to say so, I'd love to hear you play sometime, if that's okay with you, of course…"

Hermione turned to him with their coffees in hand and they sat down at the table, a slight blush coloring her cheeks.

"I'd like that, but I must warn you, I don't have the greatest singing voice to accompany my performances."

Draco smiled.

"That's quite alright by me. If I recognize what you're playing, I might just take care of the vocals for you." He replied, sipping his coffee and sighing as the hot liquid raced down his throat.

"You can sing?"

Draco shrugged.

"I wouldn't say that I can sing _well_ , but the bottles of shampoo in my shower haven't complained, so I suppose I can't be _that_ bad."

Hermione laughed at his joke and the sound of her laughter was like music all on its own.

Crookshanks hopped up on his cat perch by the window and Draco regarded the ginger cat with a curious look.

"Wait, is that the same cat you had at Hogwarts?" He asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Yeah… I think he had a run in with Nicolas Flamel and his Elixir of Life… I've already done reversal spells on him that would have revealed if he was an Animagus in disguise, but there's nothing there to reverse. He's just a ridiculously old cat, that's all…" Hermione replied with a shrug and sipped her coffee.

"That _is_ odd…" Draco mused aloud.

Hermione stood up and walked over to her refrigerator.

"So, what do you want for breakfast? I can whip up some scrambled eggs and toast…" she opened the refrigerator and began to rummage around, "I'm afraid I'm all out of bacon and sausage though… and cheese as well… Merlin, I really need to go to the market… Christ, I haven't even got a box of cheerios…"

Draco smiled at her mutterings and musings.

"Scrambled eggs with toast sounds great, thank you. Here, let me help…" He said, rising from the table to grab the loaf of bread from its spot atop the refrigerator as Hermione spun around and found herself trapped between the refrigerator and Draco's chest.

Noticing their close proximity, Draco backed away as much as he could with the table behind him, which wasn't much, to say the least.

Her big brown eyes stared up at him and she bit her lip as a soft blush rose to her cheeks. She was alluring, he'd be lying if he even thought otherwise, and he wanted so badly to kiss her again, to feel those soft lips on his once more.

This time, he definitely made the first move, dropping the bread on the table behind him, he wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her close, the other hand tipping her chin up so that he could press his lips to hers.

Hermione put the eggs on the table behind Draco and kicked the refrigerator door closed as she sighed into the kiss, her hands wrapping around his waist, tugging him closer.

She tasted like coffee and sugar, so sweet, and he was a goner for sure when he felt her relax in his arms and give herself over to the kiss.

She stood on tiptoe and he felt one of her steady hands winding its way into his long hair, threading through it at the base of his neck, and he sighed in return, parting his lips, inviting her in.

She took the hint and wound her tongue with his as he pushed her back against the cool stainless steel of her refrigerator, moaning softly at all the contact, urging him onward.

For all the times she had been kissed by Ron, she had never had a kiss that made her feel weak in the knees until now.

Perhaps it was because this time, she was finally interested in the person kissing her.

Draco pulled away and inhaled deeply before opening his eyes to gaze at her. Her eyes had darkened a bit and were richer in color now.

"This is a dangerous game you're playing, _Doctor Malfoy_ …" Hermione whispered, biting her lower lip which was darkened and slightly swollen from their kiss.

"How so?"

"Kiss me like that again and I may not want you to stop…" she murmured, her fingertips winding through his hair carelessly.

Her quiet response thrilled him down to his core.

"And what if neither of us wants to stop?" He asked, pulling her body against his, feeling her soft curves through her clothes.

"Then things may go further than just kissing…" she replied, beginning to feel the physical evidence of his interest in her against her abdomen.

"I'm not opposed to that if you aren't, _Doctor Granger_ …" Draco murmured in response, brushing his fingertips across her cheek to cup her chin.

"I'm not opposed to it either, and that's the problem…"

Draco closed his eyes and nodded as the logic behind her words sunk in.

"Yes. That is a problem… I don't want to rush into things…" He replied, pulling away from her.

Hermione nodded and released him. Although it didn't hurt to let him go, she still felt the dull, pressing ache of need in her abdomen, something she hadn't felt in the longest time.

"Neither do I… everything is just too, I don't know, _raw_ …" She replied, crossing her arms across her chest.

Draco nodded.

"Yeah, I understand… Between moving here and starting work and finding out just how bad things have gotten and how much the magical community still loathes me, I think I got carried away…"

"Same here, but I think my situation is more of a complex juggling act between my private practice, surgery, and my position at St. Mungo's than anything else. Ron, or rather, the thought of being _with_ Ron for the rest of my life was just the one that made me dive headlong into all of it, and now I have to remain committed to seeing it through until the end… Merlin only knows what sort of shitstorm would blow up if anyone knew about what is going on between us, this… whatever this is…"

Hermione grabbed the eggs and broke a couple into the pan before salting and peppering them and beginning to stir them over the hot burner.

"Right. That's another thing… If we keep this up, someone would find out eventually. It would be front-page news: _"Golden Granger Dumps War Hero Weasley and Snogs Death Eater Malfoy!"_. Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" He replied, sarcasm evident in his tone for the last few phrases, "I mean could you imagine all the hate mail we'd get, not to mention how badly it could derail the hybridization process at St. Mungo's? I still have people who want to see me in Azkaban, Ron Weasley is one of them…"

Hermione turned to face him.

"I'm worried about that too, but I can't live in fear anymore, and neither can you…" she said, "The War is over and most people have moved on with their lives. We have to move on with them…"

Draco nodded.

"You're right."

She set their plates before them and sipped her coffee.

"I think the major question is _how_ are we going to manage to do all of this while also moving on?"

Draco began to eat and nodded in agreement.

"How indeed…"

Hermione thought for a moment.

"Maybe we should take a chance and dive headlong into, well, whatever this is between us… Maybe my status could redeem you in the eyes of the community?" She mused aloud, "Perhaps there are more people who would support this than we truly realize…"

Draco looked up at her and saw the wheels turning in her mind.

"Its true what they say about Gryffindors being brave…" He murmured in awe of her, "But I don't know if I could really and truly live with myself if this whole thing backfired and ruined both your career and reputation..."

She blushed softly and sighed.

"I suppose there's really only one way to find out for sure, though…" She replied and patted yesterday's morning edition of the Daily Prophet, "Tell the media… It'll probably make the Society Column at least…"

Draco shook his head and reached across the table to hold her hand.

"No. I'm not going to drag you down with me, _especially_ not if they drag your image through the dirt. The media, well, American media at least, is particularly known for placing blame on a woman for her choices in a dating partner… I can't and won't see the same done to you."

Hermione bit her lip.

His grey eyes were full of sincere concern and she realized that he had seen the media in their community destroy (or attempt to destroy) the image of everyone he knew; his mother, his friends, even himself. She realized with a jolt that he was trying to protect her.

If they were going to be successful with changing the way their world viewed medicine, their reputations had to remain immaculate.

"Do you have a better idea?" She asked.

He thought for a moment and then she saw an idea pop into his head.

"You've never officially met my mother." He stated, "That could be our start…"

"Narcissa? Are you sure? I mean, she lives with Andromeda and Teddy… Harry visits her every week…"

Hermione looked uncertain.

"Hogwarts is back in session and Andromeda is going to visit her late husband's family in Scotland soon. My mother is going to have the house to herself, we can go then."

Draco was determined to make this work and she could see it in his eyes.

Hermione squeezed his hand gently.

"Alright. That will be our start." She agreed, watching the way Draco smiled and feeling that warm rush of jitters fill her stomach.

"Until then, we need to keep this hidden and formulate a plan to stay out of the news…"

"Agreed."

They agreed to keep things quiet and only work together in the public eye if need be and that they would text each other to establish meetups outside of work, always in each other's flats, never in public.

"My father might be incarcerated, but I still shudder to think what he might be able to do if word got out about us." Draco said solemnly.

He didn't have to go into extensive detail about how dangerous his father could be, Hermione already knew.

Before they knew it, it was time for Draco to depart so that Hermione could get ready for work.

They stood in the living room and Hermione smiled softly as he raised one of her hands to his lips and kissed it softly.

"Until next time, Dr. Granger."

"I'll hold you to that, Dr. Malfoy." She replied, blushing softly.

With a final, chaste kiss to her forehead, Draco apparated from her flat.

Crookshanks stared at her from his spot on the reading chair in her alcove, his front paws crossed in a sassy manner as if to say, _"You've got it bad."_

She shook her head at the cat.

"I do not. He and I are just… well, I don't know what we are, but I do _not_ 'have it bad'…" She said, replying to the unspoken comment that he surely would have said if he could have talked.

The big ginger cat blinked slowly at her, judging her silently.

She walked away and went about her business, mulling the past twelve hours over in her head.

She went to work and attempted and failed to push the thoughts of her feelings and the events of the past day or so from her mind as she operated on her patients. She made no mistakes and all procedures and follow-ups went smoothly, all the while unaware that across London, in St. Mungo's, Draco was utterly unable to keep her from his mind as well.

Gina Wick, his assistant, was the first one to notice.

"Dr. Malfoy, with all due respect, you seem to be a bit distant today. Anything you need to talk about?" She asked as they ended their rounds of the emergency room.

Draco shook his head.

"Not at all… I'm just readjusting to life here. I almost drove on the wrong side of the road today…"

"Sounds to me like you're distracted by something… I know the patients can be a bit hesitant to be treated by you, but that's only because they haven't met you. They only know what's been published in the papers, and, unfortunately, they'll only hang onto the bad stuff that was written over a decade ago. Give it time. They'll come around… I should know." She replied.

He glanced at the lanky witch with her long brown hair and intense blue eyes and gave her a curious look.

"What do you mean by that?" He asked.

She pursed her lips.

"I mean that a lot of patients didn't take too kindly to me being trans… especially while I was in the process of transitioning from male to female…" She replied, "A fair few of them flat out told me that I had no right to live, let alone be a witch… Norrington's a good bloke in the way that he shut most of that down by getting rid of the coworkers I had who called me some very transphobic things and outed me in front of others during the War, knowing full well that I could have been murdered for it. Say what you will about how he can be disorganized and unsure of himself at times, but you'll not find a less judgmental wizard here, I promise you that…" Gina said with a curt nod of her head.

"I had no idea." Draco replied sincerely, "Not that you were trans or that you were that much older than me."

Gina laughed.

"You'll find that once you discover the type of life and moisturizing cream that works best for you, you'll remain young forever." She said, coaxing a laugh from Draco as well.

"I suppose you're right about that, but this isn't quite about my being accepted here… This is about a certain witch that I'm involved with. I-I'd rather not go into detail until the time is right."

Gina nodded.

"I understand. I hope that things work out between you and this witch of yours."

"Thank you."

Gina nodded and went off to check on the patient documents as Draco gathered his mail from his letterbox and entered his office and closed the door behind himself.

He sat down at his desk chair and hummed to himself as he read his mail.

Then he felt his cell phone buzz with a new message.

He took it out and smiled when he saw it was from Hermione.

 _Finished early at work, had to reschedule some patients due to demand for the operating theatres, dinner at my place tonight?_

He messaged her back.

 _Sounds like a plan. See you at seven?_

Her response was almost immediate.

 _Seven on the dot. See you then._

He put his phone away and sighed before leaving his office, totally unaware of the trouble brewing across London at The Daily Prophet.

Thelma and her husband, Victor were there, helping Rita on the story.

"Couldn't get a decent shot of either of them, can't we just recirculate some old photos of them?" Victor commented as he laid out a bunch of blurry moving photos on the desk before him.

"No, we cannot just recirculate old photos, this is a big story!" Rita snapped at her son in law.

"Mum, he's trying his best. What would you have us do, break into the muggle hospital where Hermione Granger works and get arrested by the Ministry for potentially violating the Statute of Secrecy? Ambush Malfoy at St. Mungo's? That'll go over well…" Thelma replied, rolling her eyes at her mother.

"No, of course not, but we _need_ photos of them together."

Victor got an idea.

"But we know where both of them live… We could post one photographer undercover at Malfoy's house and one undercover at Granger's, like hiding in a car or something… Hopefully they'll slip up and one will go to the other's flat… if we can chance a shot through a window and catch them together, it'll be the perfect photo for the front page. As long as we can get that photo, we can put some separate, recirculated images further along in the story."

Rita nodded.

"Good idea. Victor, you'll stake out at Granger's house, I'll send Benny over to Malfoy's house." She replied.

Benny had been the photographer working on all the stories with Rita since her writing debut in Witch Weekly many years prior. He had been the one who had taken the infamous shot of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger embracing before the first Triwizard Tournament event.

They all nodded and dispersed; Thelma to her typewriter to get cracking on the finer details of editing her mother's story, Rita to finally get some sleep, and Victor to grab Benny from the darkroom and go undercover.

And so, they went and waited.

Benny snapped a few photos of Hermione parking her faded red Volvo and heading into her building in her scrubs, Victor didn't have any luck at Malfoy's flat, so he went to St. Mungo's and he and Thelma began working on their coverage of the transition from healing arts to modern medicine, interviewing a few doctors and healers here and there, all the while hoping that they would get a glimpse of Draco Malfoy.

Before he was about to leave from St. Mungo's, Draco heard a knock on his office door that made him jump and drop a stack of files on the floor.

" _The sooner we switch over to electronic health records, the better…"_ He thought as he bent over to pick them up, recalling that there was someone at his office door.

"Ah, come in!" he shouted, kneeling on the floor and shuffling papers into their correct order.

He heard the door open and close again.

"How may I help you?" He asked before standing up again to properly face his visitor, nearly dropping the files again as he spun to face them.

Ron Weasley stood nearly toe to toe with him, his arms crossed over his chest in an intimidating manner, a scowl firmly in place on his lips.

"You can help me by staying the fuck away from my fiancée." The redhead growled at him.

At the word _"fiancée"_ , Draco stood up straighter.

Weasley may have been able to get away with gaslighting Hermione and everyone else into believing that the things he did to her, he did out of love, but Draco had seen all of that before with his mother and father.

He refused to let that slip.

"But she's not your fiancée, is she?" Draco replied coolly, "She broke up with you. I don't think Dr. Granger would appreciate you spreading lies about her accepting your proposal. From where I was standing, it seemed like a clear rejection."

Ron looked shocked at this revelation.

"I knew it. I knew someone was in her closet. Cold floorboards, my arse. If I had known it was you, I'd be going to Azkaban for murder."

"I'm sure my father would have been delighted to see you." Draco said in a humorless voice.

He knew that his father had killed other people in Azkaban, his mother had told him as much.

"I guess I would have been applauded by him, eh? Does he know what you've become? I'm sure he'll love to hear just how much you've sullied your family name by working with muggles… I mean, I'd be willing to bet that your dear old dad would even _defend_ me if I told him that I had drawn my wand and snuffed you while you were snogging Hermione Granger in that window seat this morning…" Ron said in a dangerous tone.

"Then why didn't you, hm?" Draco asked, "Why didn't you kill me then and there? You had a clear shot and could have taken it, you know the spell, we all were taught it in fourth year, and if your aim is as good as it was in school, you could have done it without hitting Hermione, so why didn't you kill me when you had a chance?"

Draco knew he was provoking Ron, he knew it was a bad idea, but was so angry at all the hurt he had caused Hermione over the years that he didn't care in the slightest.

"Because I'm not a murderer. There's only one of them in this room and you're it."

"I never killed anyone, you idiot." He snapped back.

"But you're the reason why so many are dead." Ron replied, "Voldemort asked you a question about the muggleborn population at Hogwarts, who you knew to be less than half blood, and you sang like a fucking canary."

"Because Voldemort would have killed my mother otherwise, or worse…"

Ron let out a humorless laugh.

"You sounded just like Hermione then…" he muttered, recalling a long past conversation they had had before he and Harry had truly become friends with her, "There's nothing worse than death."

Draco rolled his eyes and checked his watch, noting that it was almost time for his evening rounds before leaving so the night shift could take over. He wasn't going to tell Ron about how the Death Eaters treated women, he didn't care.

"I have an appointment to get to Weasley, so either tell me what you came here to tell me or you can leave." Draco said in an exasperated voice.

"Fair enough." Ron said and turned towards the door before swinging back around again with a massive right hook that caught Draco square in the jaw and sent him crashing to the floor, "There's my message, I hope we understand each other." He sneered before leaving his office and closing the door behind him.

Draco reeled from the blow, already feeling the beginnings of a bruise blossoming along his jaw and tasting blood in his mouth from where his flesh had been broken against his teeth.

A second knock came at his door.

"Dr. Malfoy? I saw that man leaving your office, he was rubbing his knuckles. Are you okay?" Gina asked through the frosted glass.

"Come in, Wick." He replied, leaning against his desk and gingerly touching his cheek.

Gina came in and closed the door behind herself.

"Merlin's beard, let me call hospital security!" She said positioning herself to conjure a Patronus when she saw his jaw.

"That won't be necessary."

"He accosted you! With all due respect, I think it's necessary he be turned over to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at once, at least for assault and battery." Gina replied.

"Gina, please, it isn't necessary… I-I had that coming…" he replied, conjuring up some ice cubes from the water bottle that sat on his desk and placing them in a nitrile exam glove before pressing them against his cheek, wincing slightly at the stinging sensation.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean to say that that witch I'm involved with happens to be Dr. Hermione Granger… that man you saw leaving was Ronald Weasley… he came to give me a warm welcome back to England, I suppose." He replied with a little chuckle at his own joke.

"Oh… I see what you mean now about wanting to wait until the right time… He and Hermione, Dr. Granger, have been dating on and off for ages…" She said, "I s'pose they're off again, eh?"

"Yeah, hopefully permanently…" Draco replied.

"Has he... has he hurt her?" Gina asked, "Only asking because I know some people who work with domestic violence victims and they have a great network of people who can help her if that's the case, of course we're all mandated reporters here…"

He shook his head.

"Not to my knowledge."

"Thank the Gods for that." Gina sighed.

They stood in silence for a bit before Draco took the ice off his cheek.

"How bad is it?" He asked.

"Not so awful, but you might want to put some essence of dittany on there, or some arnica cream, just to help with the bruising…"

"Do you think I should hold off on making the rounds and just leave early? I don't want the patients to think we've got a fight club going back here…"

Gina laughed a bit.

"I'll get Dr. McGarity over here to see if she can take up your rounds. Go home, ice your face, and please tell someone that Ron Weasley did that to you… You don't just hit someone and walk away scot free…"

"Will do, Nurse Wick, oh, but before you leave, I have a question."

She raised her penciled eyebrows.

"Would you be interested in training to become my assistant surgical nurse?" he asked.

Gina smiled.

"I would be honored… Oh gosh, wait until my wife hears about this, she'll be overjoyed. She works here too, you know?"

"Oh? What department?"

"She's a sister on the pediatric ward… she says it's a hard job, seeing children in pain, but being able to help them get better and see them smile and play again makes it all worthwhile." Gina replied, her face glowing as she talked about her wife, "Gosh, I love her so, she's just the most caring person I've ever met." She paused as she went to leave, "If it's not so bold of me to say so, I hope you and Dr. Granger are happy. From what I've seen so far, you two seem to work very well together."

Draco smiled at her words.

"Thank you, Gina."

Gina nodded and left the office.

Draco ignored the throbbing in his cheek as he tidied up his office and set out tomorrow's work for when he came in.

It did bother him to let Ron just leave like that, but he didn't want to make a move without first consulting Hermione. Her career and reputation were at stake here, too.

He did want to grab some food before heading off to Hermione's flat and used the camera on his phone as a mirror while he charmed the bruised area of his face so that it would look like normal skin again. He left and went downstairs to the lobby, smiling genially at the reporters from the Daily Prophet and waving casually as one of their photographers snapped a picture of him.

When he arrived at the market down the block, he paused and realized that he had absolutely no idea what sort of food Hermione liked.

" _Well, she took her coffee with cream and sugar_ , _so that means she isn't allergic to dairy products."_ He thought to himself, eyeing up the deal that was advertised for frozen pizzas, _"But it's a dreary day, and she has gone through a breakup, so perhaps takeaway would be better as a form of comfort food?"_

Draco ultimately sighed and decided to text her instead of guessing hopelessly.

Her response was almost immediate.

 _That sounds wonderful. There's a Chinese takeaway the next street over from me called Lucky Inn, meet me there and I'll buy dinner for us both._

He felt a lump form in his throat.

 _I should be the one buying, it's only proper._

He should have expected her next message.

 _Says who? Why can't a woman buy a man dinner? This is the 21_ _st_ _century, after all. I'm buying and that's that. See you in a few minutes._

He smirked, ignoring the pain in his jaw caused by the motion.

 _Alright then, I'll see you there._

He quickly moved himself out of sight so he could search for an image of the Lucky Inn and get it in his mind's eye to apparate into the alley beside the restaurant, which he did a second later.

As he waited for Hermione outside of the establishment, he began to text his mother.

 _Mum, something rather wonderful has happened…_

He stared at the message for a moment and then deleted it. He didn't want to get his hopes up and it was best not to count his dragons before they were hatched, especially now.

Hermione fixed her hair before apparating to the alley near Lucky Inn and nearly collided with Draco as she rounded the corner.

They both went to apologize at the same time before they realized what had just happened and laughed.

"Sorry about that… I hardly recognized you with your hair down." Hermione said, placing her hand gently against his forearm to steady herself.

"I find that if I keep it up for too long, it begins to make my scalp feel tight, and that's rather painful after a while…" he replied as they entered the restaurant.

"I have a product that helps with that, it doesn't smell too good, but it definitely does help with relieving that tension. If it hurts now, you could try it when we get home." She said, looking up at him with a smile, her stomach doing a little flip when she realized that she had referred to her flat as their home without even thinking.

"I think I'll take you up on that offer."

Hermione ordered for both of them after Draco admitted that he wanted to be surprised.

They decided to walk back to her flat after getting their food, allowing it to cool off. The rain had stopped too, and they walked and talked.

"So, after school, was becoming a doctor your first choice?" Draco asked, "In my mind, you always seemed more of the type to pursue legal interests and a career that reflected those things."

"I did think about going into law, but after doing some research on the topic, I realized that it wasn't my calling, especially after going through the hearings and trials after the war was over. I wanted to put that in the past."

"Fair enough."

"How about you, any reason why you went into medicine?" she asked as they rounded the corner and began walking up the street to her building.

"Well, it started off as being the best way to support myself, then I realized I was good at it. I was a nurse first, and that experience really helped me when I decided to set my sights on becoming a doctor."

They paused as she handed him the food to grab her key to the building, both of them unaware that their pictures were being taken.

When they got into Hermione's flat, they both drew their wands and levitated the food to the table before taking off their coats and shoes at the door.

"Um, which one is your bathroom?" Draco asked, nodding to the identical doors on the right side of her hallway.

"Oh, second door on the right."

"Thanks."

He entered and closed the door behind himself, removing the charm to hide his face and wincing softly as he noticed how bad it had become in the past half hour or so.

He washed up and then left the bathroom; pausing in the hallway and taking a deep breath before entering the kitchen.

"Uh, I was wondering if you had any dittany… I got in a bit of a tussle at work." He said as he approached her.

"Oh, it's in the bathroom, I can- Merlin's beard, what happened?" she began before facing him and recoiling at the sight of his darkly bruised face and jawline, her voice raising in pitch as she stepped closer, immediately taking his hand and pulling him into the bathroom.

"Sit on the toilet and tell me what happened." She said, opening her medicine cabinet and pulling out different tinctures and potions to address his injury.

Draco swallowed hard. He didn't want to lie to Hermione, but he didn't want to cause her to worry about his safety either. After a tense second, he decided to tell the truth.

"Well, uh, Ron Weasley decided to pay me a visit today… Evidently, he has a very good right hook…"

Hermione stopped in her tracks.

"Ron did this to you?" she asked quietly, reaching out to touch his face, partially to assess whether or not anything was broken, but also to try and comfort Draco, "Did he say why?"

Draco nodded.

"He told me that he saw us kiss this morning… that he stood outside your flat all night." Draco purposefully left out the other parts of their conversation, not wanting to upset her right now. He gazed up at her, "I'm sorry."

She shook her head.

"You have nothing to apologize for. I'm the one who should be apologizing… I dragged you right into the middle of this mess, I shouldn't have come to your flat. If I had only been smart enough to strictly remain professional, none of this would have happened…"

Draco saw her beginning to spiral into the same state of self-blame that he had seen his mother go through after his father had abused her and made her think that she was the one at fault. The very sight of that happening to Hermione made him stand up and take her hands.

"Hey, hey listen to me, I don't regret you reaching out to me, I don't regret comforting you, and I certainly do not regret kissing you. You shouldn't regret any of those things either." He said as he rubbed his thumbs over the backs of her hands, trying his best to comfort her.

"But he hurt you because of me."

"Hermione, he would have hurt me anyway. None of this is your fault. I knew that there would be people who weren't comfortable with me coming back into the community, and I came anyway. I knew the risks and accepted them." He paused before asking if he could hug her, and she nodded her consent, tucking herself into his embrace like she belonged there.

"I just wish there weren't associated risks that came from being with me." She muttered.

"Well, I accept those risks, too."

Hermione stepped back and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"Well, then, lets get you patched up. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can eat." She said, sighing and beginning to work on his bruises.

"That sounds like a plan to me." Draco agreed and closed his eyes, allowing Hermione to work.

There was silence for a few minutes and Hermione took that time to memorize Draco's face.

He had always been conventionally handsome, even at Hogwarts, but as she healed his face, she could denote tiny scars from acne, his five o' clock shadow coming in, which was darker than the hair on his head, the tiny lines that set themselves into the skin around his eyes and a curious little scar on his right cheekbone.

"Did you cut yourself while shaving?" she asked, smoothing her thumb over the scar.

"No, it was from running through a spray of flying glass."

"9/11?"

"Yeah. I was lucky. I caught most of it with my forearm." Draco replied, pulling up his right sleeve to show her the matching scars on his outer arm.

"I can't even begin to imagine being there for that…" She whispered, "Watching it on the news was bad enough…"

Draco inhaled and exhaled.

"Can we talk about something else, please?" He asked quietly.

"Sure. Uh, what's your Patronus?" She asked.

"Oh, you're going to love this one…" He chuckled, "You remember how in fourth year I was talking shit to Potter that one time and Moody, well, Barty Crouch Jr. masquerading as Moody, transfigured me into a ferret?"

Hermione's mouth fell open and she tried not to laugh in his face.

"No, no fucking way." She replied, "No way is your Patronus a fucking ferret."

"Swear to God, it is!" He countered, drawing his wand and conjuring his Patronus.

A glowing, silvery white ferret streaked through the air and crawled onto Hermione's bathroom counter, standing on its hind legs and tilting its head from side to side.

Hermione laughed then.

"Well, isn't that clever." She said as it vanished.

"I showed you mine, you show me yours?" Draco asked.

"Oh, fine then, fair is fair." She said, conjuring her Patronus.

"An otter?" He asked in awe as it squeaked and floated around in the air as if it were swimming.

"Yeah… I wasn't expecting to see it my first time conjuring either…" she replied, as the charm faded out.

They washed their hands and went into the kitchen.

"What's your favorite color?" Draco asked as they ate.

"Mmm, forest green… but I've been told that dark red is my color, not because I was Gryffindor either, just that it suits my skin tone. How about you?" Hermione replied.

"Me? Uh, pink."

"Pink?"

"Yeah, that was the color of my Shock-Trauma scrubs and it grew on me. It was also the color of my favorite flavor of ice cream from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor; Strawberries and Cream." He replied, "But if my father is the one asking, my favorite color is gray."

Hermione rolled her eyes at that.

"Did you have any pets growing up?" Hermione asked.

"Uh, we had thestrals, owls, peacocks, and my mum had a cat when I was young… you?"

"I had a hamster when I was six, but it died a few years later… I wanted to get a cat, but my dad wanted me to wait until I was thirteen to get one, that way I would be responsible enough to take care of it… that's why I got Crookshanks in the summer between second and third year."

Hermione paused.

"Will your mum approve of you being with me?" she asked tentatively.

Draco stopped eating.

"I think she will. A lot of her time has been spent working on addressing her prejudices and unlearning behaviors she's been taught her entire life. She's embraced muggle culture. She even learned how to drive, but you probably knew all of that. I mean, Harry is Teddy's godfather, I s'pose that makes you his aunt in a way?"

"Yeah, kind of. Ron is his uncle because Harry married Ginny, but I always thought it was odd to be considered an aunt of a child you only really met on a couple of occasions. He's always been closer to Harry."

"Speaking of Harry, will he approve?" Draco asked.

"His opinion is biased in favor of Ron and whatever Molly Weasley says; Molly is like the mum Harry never had, and he's married to Ginny, so that makes him her son in law." Hermione muttered, staring at her food.

"If he knew what happened though, would that change his mind?"

"It might, but he's always been significantly closer to Ron as a friend than he has been to me." Hermione paused, "Honestly, I'm a bit tired of always being held to their standards. Harry didn't say anything when Ron would date other women when he and I were broken up, but the one time I was asked on a date by someone from the Ministry, I was stood up by the guy because Harry had told him how I was off limits or some other nonsense like that."

"Sounds like a bit of rebellion is in order." Draco replied.

Hermione grinned.

"Is that what we are? A rebellion?" she asked.

Draco shrugged.

"Sure, why not? I can't think of a better term for us. I'm rebelling against everything my father has ever taught me, you're rebelling against Weasley and Potter and their wrongfully imposed boundaries regarding your romantic life; a rebellion seems fitting to me."

Hermione smiled at Draco.

"Very well then, we're partners in rebellion."

As they shook hands over Chinese takeaway and grinned at the prospect of their new-found partnership, they were blissfully unaware of the story that was being added as front page news to the Daily Prophet and of the fallout that would follow.


End file.
